A dramatic recap of the civil war in Lebanon, "In the Shadows of the City" leads the history-shy viewer by the hand from the first Israeli missiles on South Lebanon in 1975, through the gradually escalating conflict in Beirut, to war's end in 1990. Refusing to takes sides or even identify the protags as Christians or Muslims, acclaimed documaker Jean Khalil Chamoun paints a harrowing overview of a senseless conflict that left the country in physical and moral tatters. Though its somber tone is very different, this first feature recalls Ziad Doueiri's "West Beyrouth" in its ability to generate the emotional involvement needed to reach much the same audiences.

The story opens with footage of bombs dropping on southern Lebanon. Most of the docu material that pops up throughout the film was shot by Chamoun himself and grounds the fictional story in ferocious reality. Chamoun's background as a war reporter translates here into a realistic backdrop for an absurd conflict.

Twelve-year-old Rami (Rami Bayram) leaves his village and moves to the safety of Beirut with his family, who have no idea that all hell is about to break loose. Instead of going to school, Rami gets a job in a coffee shop run by a sensuous widow who, to him, embodies "the soul of Beirut." He falls in love with neighborhood tomboy Yasmine (Sarah Mrad), and is shattered when the city is divided into Christian and Muslim sectors and her family is forced to move to the other side.

Story is developed through its characters, including a corrupt mobster known as the Hyena, and an apparently more benign boss from the docks, Abu Samir (Ahmed Azzein), who gives the family a hand. Twelve years later, Rami (Majdi Machmouchi) is driving an ambulance around an unreal city filled with fallen rubble, bombs and sniper fire. Abu Samir and the Hyena have become the leaders of rival militia armies that terrorize the remaining inhabitants. Pic's description of the gun-toting young militiamen camped out in a lethal ghost town feels as chilling as science fiction.

Tale takes a new bend as Rami and Siham (Christine Choueiri), a young woman whose husband has been kidnapped, fight to get news of their loved ones -- Rami by force and Siham by organizing protests with other women. Spinning out the seldom-mentioned tragedy of Lebanon's thousands of desaparecidos, who vanished without a trace during the war, pic cuts new political turf, while preparing for a touching, quietly heroic ending.

Bayram and Machmouchi create an affecting portrait of the protag Rami, a self-made man whose moral stance, though sorely put to the test, miraculously survives the war.

The female characters, unusually strong and nuanced, are played with a refreshing lack of caricature. Cinematographer Youcef Sahraoui and art director Hamzi Nasrallah bring old Beirut warmly to life, turning hard-edged in the nightmarish militia scenes.