REVIEW: ‘Bye Bye Tiberias’ Beautifully Shows The Real Pain Of Hiam Abbass

Hiam Abbass is a Palestinian icon in the world of cinema and TV. Her performances constantly carry electric weight as she commands the attention of her audience. Whether in Ramy, Succession, Blade Runner 2049, I still Hide to Smoke, Gaza Mon Amour, or her various other film and TV roles, including voice acting in Michel Ocelot’s Azur et Asmar, she’s an attention-commanding master in her craft, very often carrying a dignified solemnity that conveys experienced heartbreak and loss. The new documentary Bye Bye Tiberias, directed by Abbass’ daughter Lina Soualem, gives audiences direct insight into Abbass’s life story and grief, allowing us to understand how she channels it into her art.

The Israeli Occupation of Palestine informs every aspect of Abbass and her family’s story in Bye Bye Tiberias. Abbass recounts stories of her family’s displacement from the titular Tiberias, as well as that of other Palestinians from their towns and villages. The various letters from her family she reads through the film recount their struggle and pain as they strive to make their lives and those of their children bearable under the occupation. Abbass, switching from Arabic to French and back as she speaks with her daughter, visibly carries the weight on screen, giving us this insight.

Soualem effortlessly portrays her mother’s various emotional tumults in these scenes. While obviously the closest she can possibly be to the source material, she keeps the emotional truth of Abbas’ words grounded as she grounds herself in the journalism of recounting her mother’s life. Bye Bye Tiberias is an intimate portrait that Soualem offers us viewers that maintains the dignified grace we know Abbass for, a striking balance that makes for an engaging time watching.

The main crux of Abbass’ story is interpersonal, even while the Occupation certainly pressured it. While still loving, her relationship with her mother strains from their fierce disagreement over her pursuit of acting. The realization that she didn’t consider her life with her family in Palestine good enough weighs heavily on both mother and daughter. Which is captured expertly in Soualem’s direction.

We see Abbass, for all her renown, as a vulnerable daughter who carries doubt for her rebellious adolescence. Choosing to move to France to pursue acting did not sit well with her mother, not necessarily for any cultural disagreement but fundamentally for her leaving home. It’s a family rift that resonates for anyone in a diaspora as we struggle to balance making our parents proud and fulfilling our own dreams. While she would frequently visit home with her daughters and husband, as seen in the various home videos presented to us through Bye Bye Tiberias, it would never make up for her leaving in the first place.

Bye Bye Tiberias doesn’t flinch from the fallout of Abbass’ decisions in youth. Marrying a fellow actor (Zinedine Soualem) in France with whom she would have Lina and Mouna, and later divorcing him, strained her life as well as her relationship with her mother. As she reflects, we clearly see the stress it continues to take, particularly when she visits her mother and sisters in Deir Hanna. We see Abbass find solitude after seeing her mother again, sitting in a bedroom as she breaks down, feeling the weight collapse on her as she can’t bear the stress of the fallout from her choices and her beloved mother’s continuous reaction to them.

But Bye Bye Tiberias isn’t all about this aspect of Abbass’ story with her family, of course, and shows moments of joy and reconciliation as well. It’s easy to imagine that her dynamic with her mother is cyclical, as we see that the deep love they have for one another allows them to bounce back when they need to. It is easy to imagine that the unrelenting trauma of the Occupation makes any healing process difficult to continue, making for more the underlying sadness in Soualem’s documentary.

Fundamentally, this is a story about the generations of women in the Abbass family. It’s about how they persevered through their internal and external pressures. There’s so much inherent joy on display as Soualem carries the audience through the past to the present, weaving together her family story and celebrating their perseverance. Just like our leading lady Hiam Abbass, they all carry the pain as well as the joy, ultimately transcending whatever their oppressors abuse, beautifully emblemizing the Palestinian people as a whole.

Bye Bye Tiberias is a beautiful documentary that takes us behind the scenes of Hiam Abbass’ own family story. Through her skillful direction, Lina Soualem gives audiences a firsthand look into the wellspring of experiences that her mother clearly draws from in her various superb acting roles and real life advocacy for her people. From excellent editing and direction, to the courage to portray her own family with such vulnerably, to her legendary mother being the focal point, it makes for a beautifully poignant watch.

Bye Bye Tiberias is coming soon to VOD.