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Ritual occasions in the movies can bring us to laughter and tears and hope and regret; the chords they strike suggest the complex intersection between American movies and our lives. Major ritual occasions of weddings, baptisms, bar mitzvahs, funerals, graduations, and birthday parties appear in hundreds of popular films produced by Hollywood throughout the 20th century. This study suggests that these stock scenes are more significant to American film than we might have thought.

Algiers, 1955. It is in the midst of civil war, and we meet Sarah, who joins an anti-terrorism unit. There, she meets Salim, a forensic scientist. They embark on a passionate affair, facing the horror of terrorist attacks alongside their own wild impulses. Together, they learn who is to blame for the carnage at a local school. The perpetrators are the same people who tore an eleven-year-old girl from her class before beating, raping, and killing her. The assassins even dare to attend the funeral of a boy shot in the school’s courtyard while he was cleaning the blackboard. But as Sarah and Salim discover, none in the community are willing to speak out or denounce the killers, as doing so would only put their own lives at risk.

Full of suspense and drama, The Funerals takes readers behind the madness of civil war and shows how in times like these, some might attack their victims to feel a little less alone—perhaps even a little more human.