As I was zapping across various TV channels this morning, I came upon a clip by Elyssa on MTV Lebanon.
While the song was unsurprisingly bland, the clip was actually interesting to watch, yet as usual a few scenes into it, I had another House M.D Epiphany moment.
The clip which you can see below showed well acclaimed actor Youssef el Khal carrying some paintings and struggling in a strong wind only to finally bump into expressionless ex-Miss Lebanese beauty-turned-actress Nadine Njeim (the now skinnier one: I can never tell them apart by their middle initials).
The action goes on with him helping her up to his place to fix her wounded leg as you can see on minute 0:51s onward. This OST (Original Sound Track) video clip is based on scenes from the series "لو" (translates to "what if") and although I have not seen any episode from the series this smells like another rip off from a major foreign production.
In this case, the movie plot that this series was taken from is the 2002 Hollywood remake of Claude Chabrol's iconic La Femme Infidèle, entitled "Unfaithful", starring Richard Gere, Diane Lane and Olivier Martinez. Instead of going on and on about it, I will just let you watch the movie trailer below.
Now there is nothing wrong with reprising a classic like Chabrol's but wouldn't it be a stronger selling line if the series was promoted as a remake of that classic movie?
I, for one, would have been at least interested in watching a bit to see how or if they pulled it off. But perhaps for local audiences such references are meaningless and pointless and do not add any value to the artwork nor to their desire to watch it. Put pretty faces on the screen, some will act some will not and the audience will applaud!
