This is a clever and also moving film.

Lebanon is most frequently invoked as a place of ruin and strife, not romance and enchantment. The debut feature from the filmmaker Chloé Mazlo, “Skies of Lebanon,” is, among other things, an intriguing swing of the pendulum of depiction.

Both an interesting character drama and a nuanced look at the cost of war.

Signals the arrival of a creative new voice in Chloé Mazlo. Moreover, it works as a powerful mediation on the optimism lost for a peacefully cosmopolitan Lebanon.