Tag: Palestine

Amira

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TRANSYLVANIA

Amira (Tara Abboud) is a daughter of the revolution. She has never hugged her father, who has been in prison as a Palestinian political prisoner for as long as she remembers. She is also a skilled photographer, fiddling around with photoshop and placing her image next to her father’s on fake holidays to Hawaii. It’s a handy metaphor for the film as a whole, which explores in great depth the true meaning of family, home and the impossibility of living under occupation.

Her father is a beatific man, oddly resembling Zelensky in his demeanour with a saintly look and a neatly trimmed beard. He is considered a hero in Palestine, married to Amira’s mother despite not being legally able to attend his own ceremony. But if he lives in a literal prison, Palestine is the biggest metaphorical open-air prison in the world, a place where secrets never remain that way for long and everything is pervaded with an ever-increasing sense of dread.

The setting is ripe with dramatic potential, which director Mohamed Diab exploits to fine effect in this smart and sensitive film. It’s based on the real phenomenon of semen smuggled out of Palestinian prisons by its forever-inmates; her father used this technique to aid Amira’s birth and he wants to do it again so she’ll have a companion. (It’s worth pointing out that there has been a backlash to the exact depiction of this process in the Palestinian press, leading to some calling for the film’s removal from the festival circuit). Yet when things start to go awry, her very identity is put into question, creating a smart metaphor for Palestine itself, a country that exists and doesn’t exist at the same time due to Isreal’s unending occupation.

There is a touch of Asghar Fahradi to the way the plot progresses, putting an oppressive society and its attendant patriarchal structures into conflict with one another through well-observed dramaturgy and naturalistic touches. But there is solid flair in the filmmaking as well. A reverse mirror shot is deployed twice in the film, showing you someone from one angle before turning around and showing them from the other side; it’s as if to show you that there’s always a different way of looking at things, and how nothing is ever clear cut. In another stand-out shot, with Amira and her father engaged in a crucial conversation, her face is superimposed against the window of her father in prison, evoking previous photographs in the way it creates intimacy in an otherwise alienating setting.

The biggest flaw is with Amira herself. Abboud is playing a 17-year-old, but oftentimes she doesn’t quite act like one, with far more conviction than a confused teenager would otherwise have. It might be necessary for the dramatic arc of the film — which bends to an absolute bitter and savage irony by the end — but it makes her unconvincing. This isn’t the fault of the actress herself, who carries both betrayal and determination with ease, but the way that she’s pitted against both the brutality of the Israeli’s and the patriarchy of the Palestinians. It’s a fine line to tread: with a third act that can’t bite into the awfulness of the situation and the impossible ways of fighting against it, Amira certainly gives you a lot to think about, but doesn’t quite land with the devastating impact that such a clever set-up deserves.

Amira plays as part of the Supernova section of the Transylvania International Film Festival, running from 17th to 26th June.

It Must be Heaven

Posted on by victorfraga

Take political satire and blend it with a twist of deadpan, a dash of comedy of errors, a little bit of Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean and Buster Keaton. Now stir in some drops of French pomp and American culture. And set it on fire with a statement about Palestinian independence. Like a an exotic absinthe drink. Sounds strange? Well, that’s because it is. It Must Be Heaven is an intoxicating cinematic cocktail. Exquisite and dirtylicious.

This is also a highly personal endeavour. The helmer Elia Suleiman plays himself. He’s almost completely silent (bar a few sentences in the final third of the movie), with a hat permanently glued to his head. He’s mostly smiley and avuncular. His exaggerated facial expressions change abruptly, a lot like Rowan Atkinson’s iconic character. Minus the canned laughter and the slapstick. Unlike the heavy-handed British personage, Elia is a very skilled man who knows exactly what he’s doing.

It all starts in Palestine. Elia’s uneventful life consists mostly with awkward interactions with his neighbours, including a trespasser who constantly sneaks into his garden in order to steal oranges from Elia’s tree. One day, Elia embarks on an aeroplane to Paris. The Louvre and Notre-Dame (before the fire, with its spire and roof still intact) have been deserted. Silence reigns. The French capital is virtually a ghost town. Perhaps this is a statement about feelings of solitude and anonymity in the City of Light. Elia visits a film producer, but his film script is promptly dismissed. “This is no good because it’s not Palestinian enough, it could be anywhere in the world”, he tells Elia.

Elia flies to New York in the final third of the movie. The city is far more vibrant. The director-writer-star drives across Manhattan Bridge on a cab. He talks to the driver. This is where he opens his mouth for the very first time. The cabbie is elated upon finding out that Elia is a Palestinian, and that he comes from Nazareth, “just like Jesus Christ”. Elia bumps into a grudging Gael Garcia Bernal (playing himself), who complains about being asked to make a film about the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes in English. Bernal notes that Elia “makes funny films”, and that he’s “the perfect stranger”. This is very clever self-deprecation. This wonderfully wacky comedy is very strange. And a foreigner is a stranger. Elia is a zany outsider. A strange stranger.

The narrative devices of It Must Be Heaven are very unconventional. There is no explanation as to why the events take place. Bizarre characters suddenly pop into the screen, such as thugs running up the street, uniformed cops moving in synchronised fashion. A little birdie walks onto Elia’s keyboard as he attempts to work. He tries it again and again as Elia repeatedly shoves it away. A little trinket of a sequence. Urgent in its simplicity.

The soundtrack is sparse and intense. Nina Simone’s I Put a Spell on You is heard in Paris, as a group of impressively dressed females walks past in slow motion. Leonard Cohen’s Darkness is played in New York as a succession of unconnected events takes place. There are also a couple of songs in Arabic, including one in the final credits (which gave me the goosebumps; I’m desperately seeking the name of the artist and the tune).

The film is dedicated to Palestine, in memory of the director’s parents and of late British art critic John Berger. Elia also clarifies: “All nations drink in order to forget, except us Palestinians who drink in order to remember”. You will understand what he means in the very end of the movie, in a dazzling beautiful and energetic sequence.

It Must Be Heaven is showed in competition at the 72nd Cannes International Film Festival (in 2019), when this piece was originally written. This French Palestinian production would make the perfect companion to Nadav Lapid’s French Israeli Synonyms, which won the Berlinale earlier in the same year. Both films use an absurdist tone in order to comment on the Israeli occupation of Palestine and mock notions of national identity. It would be very interesting if It Must Be Heaven won the Palme d’Or. It would outrage the Israeli government and send a very strong, unequivocal political message across the globe.

It is out in cinemas on Friday, June 18th. On BFI Player in May, 2023.

Wall

Posted on by victorfraga

Follow David Hare – recently described as “the premiere political dramatist writing in English” by the Washington Post – as he travels Israel and Palestine in order to assess the impact of the wall separating the two countries on both peoples. The film is mostly in black and white, combining distinctive handcraft with advanced animation tools and 3D motion-capture footage. The outcome is a realistic feel, not dissimilar to rotoscopic animation. The images are raw and bleak with the very occasional splash of colouring – much like the existence of the Palestinians.

Wall never shies away from political indictment. While listening to both sides of the story, it remains unequivocally critical of Israel’s aggressive stance towards the people who could be their “potential best friends” (here I quote Hannah Arendt, who’s not mentioned in the film). Wall reveals that the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled 14 votes to 2 on July 9th 2004 that the wall is contrary to international law. They demand that Israel seizes construction, dismantles what has already been erected and makes reparation for the damage inflicted. Israel opted to ignore the ruling, in a sheer violation of international law.

Comparisons to the Berlin wall are inevitable. The difference is that the Berlin wall kept people locked outside, while the Palestinian wall keeps people locked inside.

Israeli people are becoming increasingly anxious and therefore aggressive towards Palestine, we are told. A recent poll showed that 84% of Israelis are in favour of the wall. It has an extension of 486 miles, in a combination of razor coil, electronic fences, watchtowers, ditches, concrete slabs, control roads and checkpoints. It comes at a price tag of U$4 billion. Israelis use the euphemistic “separation fence” in order to refer to the illegal construction, while Palestinians describe it as the “the racial segregation wall”. An Israeli puts it succinctly: “80% of terrorist attacks against Israeli have been stopped. Am I not meant to be pleased about that?”

Professor Sari Nuseibeh of the Al-Quds University of Jerusalem has the best analogy to describe the relation between controversial wall and Palestinian violence: “if you put someone in a cage they will start screaming like any normal person would. Then you use their temper as a justification for putting them in the cage in the first place. The wall is the perfect crime because it creates the violence it was ostensibly created to prevent”.

Israelis use their own fears and anxieties in order to justify their aggressive behaviour. A man explains it: “Our country feels provisional. In the UK you make plans for trains and airports in 2038. We don’t. We look strong from outside, with army and nuclear weapons. But we feel weak and insecure inside”. Israelis became “addicted to occupation”, like a narcotic. They have become victims of their own anxiety, incapable of distinguishing between real dangers and ghost from the past.

Beauty is also a central topic. “Jerusalem used to be beautiful. Now it isn’t. It used to take your breath away. Now it doesn’t. How could it ? There’s a bloody concrete wall around it”. The Israeli settlements look menacing and soulless. A real eyesore. They sit on top of the hills as if keeping guard over the Palestinians below. The Palestinian city of Nablus has 180,000 inhabitants surrounded by nine Israeli checkpoints, 14 Jewish settlements and 26 settlement outposts (which are illegal even under Israeli law). Nablus used to be the commercial heart of Palestine. Now it’s just “the capital of poverty”.

The final five minutes of this film – when the graffiti sprayed on the titular wall acquires colour and movement – are genuinely breathtaking. Banksy’s iconic Girl with Balloons takes off heading towards the sky. A real explosion of images. A real explosion of feelings. Pure catharsis. A fresh reminder of how liberating art can be, particularly when several media are combined: graffiti, animation and documentary-making.

Wall shows for at the BFI Southbank on Wednesday, February 27th. There will be a director’s Q&A event on theatrical opening on Friday, 1st March at Bertha DocHouse..

In Between (Bar Bahar)

Posted on by victorfraga

What happens when an independent female filmmaker with no connection to Hollywood decides to make a movie about three Palestinian women in Tel Aviv? The result of In Between is a compelling register of women fighting for their individuality and independence from relatives and boyfriends.

Laila is a liberal party-girl attorney. She smokes, she takes drugs and she has a handsome boyfriend who is attracted to her but is too embarrassed to introduce her to his family. She might not be the right girl “to marry with”. Salma is a Christian communist lesbian DJ who tells her family her sexual preferences. When she comes back to her hometown with her lover, it turns to be an awkward situation. Her parents had arranged her marriage to a young man. Nur is the last one to join the “Arabic Girls club”. She is shy and a virgin, with a strong Islamic tradition background. Throughout the movie, she finds out her fiancée is not the charming prince for which she was hoping.

In Between is the first feature by Maysaloun Hamoud, who was born in Budapest but returned to her family’s native village of Dir Hana in Israel when she was two years old. Her natural concern about the condition of Palestinian women led to a conscious shout for equality in the conflict zone. There is no reference to war in the movie; instead the film is centered on the cultural and religious differences of three young girls who share the same flat.

Although the girls do not share the same lifestyle, their friendship functions well. They are learning that it is painful to face the hypocrisy of the society to which they belong. In her speech during the Award celebration at San Sebastian Film Festival, director Maysaloun repeatedly sustained “we need to change”. The film won two awards at the acclaimed film festival.

Finding a balance between tradition and modern culture might be the most challenging achievement for Palestinian women. In Between suggests exactly what the film title means: they are in the middle of the road, obviously unprotected. Tradition does not have the same appeal, and modern culture has not totally welcomed them yet.

The film is an example of the gender equality issues that have been raised in the cinema industry lately. It is not a feminist story such as The Suffragette (Sarah Gavron, 2015) and because it doesn’t purport to be a political and historical movie, it is even more efficient. Here the women’s voices come loud and clear. They are staging their own present dramas in a poetic and respectful way. Their stories is full of compassion and solidarity, and should be seen with an open-minded attitude. It is liberating not only for Palestinians, but for mankind too.

The film showed in San Sebastian last year, when this piece was originally written. We are delighted that the movie now has a distributor and is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, September 22nd. Due to exceptional demand, it was re-released on December 19th in selected cinemas. It’s out on DVD and VoD on January 29th.