Yes
Starring: Joan Allen, Simon Abkarian, Shirley Henderson
Director: Sally Potter
The film: Yes might sound a pretentious study of contemporary racial and class divisions, but Sally Potter accomplishes her brief with poise and poetic grace. To Potter's credit, the narrative is never weighed down by her grandiose cinematic ambition. The experimental mix of meticulously shot film and video footage with iambic-pentameter text never overwhelms this paean to love.
At the centre of Yes are two protagonists whose cultural baggage will eventually spoil their bond. There is the Ulster-born, American-bred scientist (Joan Allen, above) who's trapped in a loveless marriage; and the Lebanese surgeon (Simon Abkarian), who fled his war-stricken homeland only to become a cook - and an 'Arab' regarded with suspicion by his colleagues in a London restaurant.
The two characters are nameless throughout the film, perhaps to express the universality of relationships built on what Samuel Huntingdon once proclaimed as 'clash of civilisations'. The pair meet, fall for each other and share a new, unbridled passion of life. But the chemistry turns explosive as their cultural backgrounds return to haunt them. They separate: he returns to a Beirut in reconstruction, while she fulfils her deceased communist aunt's wishes to visit Cuba.