palestine Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Adam Sandler's movies haver never represented the apex of cultural awareness, but they do tend to grapple, if somewhat brashly, with the finer points of human relations. In his latest raunchfest, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, the insolent comic creates "his stupidest character ever" (as an audience member muttered five minutes into last night's New York preview screening), but it's also his most symbolic one: Sporting a hyperbolic flair for disco music and using hummus as toothpaste, hardened Israeli soldier Zohan is a bloated creature of Semitic extremes.

Overall, however, the movie uses metaphors more than stereotypes. When Zohan and a furious Palestinian terrorist (John Turturro) use paddles to bat a live grenade back and forth, the result is a lowbrow editorial cartoon.

For many of us, no film can offer a full comprehension of the suicide bomber. A fictional film like the Oscar-nominated Paradise Now can attempt to humanize him and an in-depth documentary like Pierre Rehov's Suicide Killers can give a rounded discussion of motives, but it is impossible to really put a viewer in the shoes and mind of such a person. Film can serve as an excellent stepping stone, though, and while a fictional story is fine to pique interest in the subject, it is Rehov's documentary, with its intent to fully explain and analyze, that gives us the better introduction.

Suicide Killers is not exactly an educational starting point, and it does not go too much into the history or politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Instead it is more of an essay documentary in which Rehov sets out to understand the psychopathology of the Palestinian suicide bomber. The film features a number of mental health experts weighing in on reasons and incentives, some of which are obvious or well-known like brainwashing and the promise of eternal paradise. Other explanations are more complex, such as the idea that suicide bombers are subconsciously responding to their heightened sexual repression and frustration.

Israeli director David Benchetrit has a fascinating personal history. Raised in Morocco by a father who secretly helped Jews emigrate to Israel, he eventually was sent to school there, becoming the first in his family to make the move. After running away from the yeshiva, Benchetrit spent time working in Tel Aviv, where he had many Palestinian friends and co-workers. When the time came for his service in the Israeli army in 1973, he became one of the first soldiers to refused to serve in the occupied territories, a decision that earned him both the label of traitor to his country and a government document that “denies him certain privileges in Israel,” including the opportunity to teach at a university.

Benchetrit’s first film, Through the Veil of Exile, an intimate look at the lives of three Palestinian women, grew out of his work as a freelance cameraman covering the intifada, and the personal confusion he felt about which side was right. It has a very limited scope, covering the trio of women with virtually no context, and without a deep exploration of the moral issues behind their personal choices and views. At the time, he said he was interested in making a film about Palestinian women, not about war.

Shot over 18 months in the Middle East, Encounter Point is another in the long line of sincere, low-budget (this one cost $300,000-400,000) films intended to shed light on the terrible conflict between Israel and Palestine. In Encounter Point’s case, the conflict is explored via a handful of subjects, all of whom have been directly affected by its violence. Robi Damelin, a South African woman whose uncle was one of Nelson Mandela’s lawyers, lost her Israeli reservist son to a sniper’s bullet. Ali Aboawwad lost a brother to the conflict, and himself spent years in an Israeli prison. Shlomo Zagman, meanwhile, grew up in a settlement and spent most of his adult life there, sharing the far-right views of his neighbors; gradually, however, his perspective broadened and he left the settlement, and founded a peace movement.

While there are powerful individual stories in Encounter Point, the film’s major weakness is that it fails to effectively tie those stories together. They are presented, end to end, without a specific setting, and it’s impossible for the viewer to know what pieces of information to hold on to. Are we to remember their names? Will these people be interacting later? At first, it feels as if bios are being sketched in preparation for a later, dramatic convergence. When the convergence never happens, however, the audience is left trying to mentally backtrack, and to create a new context for the stories from remembered fragments.

Looks like the discord in the Middle East will be resolved in a matter of days, now that Sharon Stone is on the case. Stone is in Israel on a "mission to support peace and help children", according to former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres, who appeared with Stone at a press conference. Stone playfully suggested she would "kiss just about anyone for peace in the Middle East", but when reporters egged her on to kiss Peres, she laughingly turned them down. I don't know about you, but I'll certainly sleep better at night after this bit of news.

Stone, apparently taking a page from Angelina Jolie's book (and, you know, not thinking at all about promoting Basic Instinct 2, which opens at the end of this month), will spend her five-day tour visiting a series of projects for children and "peace-mediating activities", playing soccer with Israeli and Palestinian kids, and visiting Palestinian kids in a hospital. I guess it's a good thing for celebs to put their famous faces behind causes, but really - does anyone think Sharon Stone is going to broker peace in the Middle East with a five-day visit? I guess I'd feel more warmly toward celebs who take on causes if they didn't go on peace missions with a coterie of photogs following them around taking shots of them visiting with sick kids and schmoozing with politicians. What do you think of celebs and pet causes? Do you pay more attention to an issue if a celeb promotes it? Are you more likely to donate or get involved in a humanitarian cause because a hot movie star says it's worthwhile?

A group of bereaved parents who have lost children to Palestinian suicide bombings have gathered 32,000 signatures asking the Academy to disqualify Paradise Now from consideration for the Best Film in a Foreign Language Oscar. The controversial film, about two friends from the West Bank recruited to be suicide bombers, explores the mentality behind people choosing to blow themselves and others up in the name of politics and religion. Many Israelis feel the film glorifies terrorists, and the film has been banned throughout Israel. The film was a collaborative effort by a team including a Jewish Israeli, an Israeli Arab, and a Palestinian cast and crew.

I don't think the Academy is going to bow on this and pull the film - for a nominated film to be withdrawn is just unheard of - nor do I think they should. I sympathize with the Israeli parents; losing a child under any circumstance is a terrible thing. However, part of the point of movies like Paradise Now is to explore both sides of a story. There isn't just an Israeli side to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; as in any other conflict in life, it takes two to tango. If we are to ever hope to truly see peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, we have to understand the motivations and emotions that drive ordinary people to strap explosives to their bodies and blow up themselves and innocent people. If there is room for a film like Munich, which is about the Israeli response to the terrible terrorist attack at the Munich 1972 Olympics, when terrorists killed members of the Israeli Olympic team, there must also be room for films like Paradise Now, which explore the factors that drive such acts  (to be fair, there has been Israeli protest over Munich as well). 

Israel and US Jewish groups are protesting Best Foreign Film nominee Paradise Now being listed as a film from "Palestine", and are lobbying the organizers of the awards extravaganza to change the film's tag to "Palestinian Authority", according to anonymous Israeli diplomat who spoke to Reuters. Their beef with the designation stems from the implication that Palestine as such is a recognized nation; at the moment, Palestinians have limited self-rule under the label "Palestinian Authority". The film, which is about two friends from West Gaza recruited to become suicide bombers, has been largely rejected in Israel because of what many there view as a sympathetic portrayal of suicide bombers. The film has found better reception with Palestinian audiences. The Academy has not yet spoken on what, if anything, they intend to do in response to the protest; it's kind of a no-win situation for them. The last thing Oscar wants on the biggest night of self-congratulatory flatulence of the year is to have to deal with anything remotely resembling real-life, emotionally charged conflicts.

You, dear readers, on the other hand, actually do occasionally comment on real-life issues. So let's see what you think - should the Academy change the designation of Paradise Now to the technically correct "Palestinian Authority"? Or is it more fitting that the film be designated as a film from Palestine?

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