Alternate Best Actor 2017: Kamel El Basha in The Insult

Kamel El Basha, despite winning the Volpi Cup, did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Yasser Abdallah Salameh in The Insult.

The Insult follows two men, a Palestinian refugee, and a native Christian in Lebanon as they get in a conflict that begins with an insult. 

Kamel El Basha plays the Palestinian half Yasser to Adel Karam as Tony the other half. With the film opening essentially as a feud between Tony at his home and Yasser as one of the men doing construction on his building. Something that essentially begins with angry glances and some angry words between the men with a great deal of hostility. El Basha’s work in these early scenes is honestly where his character is the most interesting because he feels the least symbolic in these scenes. El Basha brings a blunt reality of the man initially just as a guy doing a job with the exasperation around that being the defining factor of the character. Something that we get within his delivery calling Tony a “fucking prick” as just a result of a man just annoyed at having to re-do the job and deal with a person getting in the way of it. An element then that is something that can be gotten over when initially he comes to apologize and El Basha plays well the note of just holding his anger in however as someone willing to accept this way out. That however changes when it becomes clear that Tony’s views are more intense in his anti-Palestianian sentiment. Where El Basha’s largely reactionary performance in these scenes becomes more intense is basically in the repressment of the anger, to the point it is boiling in his face, even if he doesn’t let any of it out until Tony openly states his wish that the Palestinian should’ve been wiped out. Leading to Yasser to punch Tony, a moment which is well realized by El Basha as a tipping point of his frustration, momentary but impactful. 

The film then shifts to become a legal battle that ends up essentially unearthing this conflict between two men to connect it to generational conflict between ethnic and religious groups. In turn El Basha has far less interesting material to work with. As he is mostly tasked with being the put upon man hounded by Tony through two different trials in order to perform some kind of revenge against Yasser but really the Palestinian people. El Basha to his credit doesn’t fall upon easy choices to become the wailing victim or too much of a righteous indignation. In his reactions he brings an earned frustration quietly stewing within himself that he slowly eases up throughout his scenes. He isn’t all that focused upon though within this and it is mostly left to El Basha to bring these changes alive. He does a decent job, particularly the quiet humility of his work when Tony ends up unexpectedly giving Yasser some help when Yasser’s car won’t start. But both men’s personal struggle ends up taking the backseat to the symbols they become within the larger struggle. What this eventually culminates in is both men basically leaving behind their personal conflict mostly as the societal one builds up with them becoming pawns in a way. Leading to a climactic personal moment eventually, which is the most compelling thing El Basha gets to work with in the latter half of the film as he meets with Tony on his own. Where he begins bombarding him with negative Christian sentiments, and El Basha is good in playing it with a certain knowing distance while selling the words. Playing the moment as basically Yasser presenting himself as Tony from the beginning of the film, not as a falsehood but a presentation of his own anger filtered through hateful means. Leading to Tony to punch Yasser, which El Basha reveals the reality of the moment, so effectively through his way of accepting the punch with a wholly earnest apology followed afterwards. El Basha presents suddenly the rage honestly having been gone and one man to another just trying to genuinely make amends through what they’ve been through. It’s a strong moment, one that makes me though slightly annoyed by how much Yasser as a character takes a backseat up until this point, given El Basha is so game to find the nuance within the character. Regardless it stands as a good performance but the writing behind is illustrative of the film’s overall shortcomings. However even with that in mind, El Basha delivers an impressive performance by accentuating the nuance whenever can. It would've been easy to fall into the easy notes, something I feel his co-star unfortunately does do, but El Basha consistently elevates and maintains complexity rather than simplicity.