Wajib- The Wedding Invitation

Like "The Reports on Sarah and Saleem", Wajib is a film that features Arab Israelis. A family story set in Nazareth, it uses the familiar scenario of adult child visiting the family home to illustrate the life of Arab citizens in Israel.

Shadi is an Arab Israeli architect who lives in Italy. His father (Abu Shadi) and his sister live in Nazareth, which is where he grew up. His sister is about to get married, and Shadi is home for the wedding. Their mother lives in America having left her husband and Israel when Shadi and his sister were children.

Most of the  film takes place over the course of a day. Shadi and his father are driving around Nazareth hand-delivering wedding invitations. As result we get to meet many of their family and friends and see inside many homes. Shadi and Abu Shadi have lots of opportunity to talk while they're in the car. As is often the case when you spend time with family, they find each other both irritating and endearing. Shadi is trying to give up smoking, and Abu Shadi, who has heart trouble and is supposed to be giving up, shows no interest in doing so. We learn that Shadi's mother leaving her husband continues to be an embarrassment, and we learn that Shadi was sent to Italy when he got into some political trouble when he was younger. He's much more anti-Israeli than his Dad ,and is outraged when he discovers his father is proposing to invite one of his Jewish friends to the wedding. We learn that Arab tradition is still important, and that delivering wedding invitations in Nazareth is  a parking nightmare and that you'll be forced to drink enough coffee to keep you awake for a week.

Wajib is a pretty gentle film that's illustrative without packing much of an emotional punch. The characters are like-able and they have a relatively pleasant lifestyle compared to their counterparts in the West Bank and Gaza but there are constraints  to that lifestyle

Saleh Bakri who is an Israeli-born Arab himself, rejects the Israeli label, preferring to describe himself as a Palestinian - you can read about that.here.  Saleh has been described as the sexiest man in Israel and if you're looking for a reason to go and see the film, an extended opportunity to admire him is a valid one. There's a nice  inter-generational contrast between Shadi the son who wears a floral shirt and his hair in a topknot and Abu Shadi who wears muted colours and a flat cap.

Anne's rating 2.5/5

The Reports on Sarah and Saleem

We've seen quite a few movies about Palestinians who live in the West Bank (Paradise Now, A Wedding in Ramallah, Omar, Private, The Zoo) but few about Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. So  The Reports on Sarah and Saleem broke some new ground in terms of both that and interaction between Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens.

So in this movie, Sarah is a Jewish Israeli cafe owner, and Saleem is a Palestinian who delivers croissants to her cafe. They move in different circles but they both live in Jerusalem. They both have distracted spouses - Sarah's husband David is an officer in the IDF and is often away and Saleem's wife Bisan is pregnant and is declining sex because it's bad for the baby. So they have motive, proximity and opportunity for the affair they embark on. The bakery van provides a handy venue. You could say their affair was bound to lead to trouble but it seemed harmless enough initially.

The event that really starts the trouble is a late-night trip to Bethlehem. Despite the plan to pretend Sarah is foreign by having her only speak in English, she's rumbled as Jewish and some unhappy Arabs not only give Saleem a hard time, they report him to the authorities, and things escalate from there.

Any affair has potentially troublesome ramifications and I guess the plot revolves around the many ramifications that this affair had, in this politically and racially charged part of the world. Many of them were unexpected, and I was never bored and never knew quite what was going to happen next. This movie is quite woman-centric for a Middle-Eastern film and I liked how Sarah and Bisan didn't just roll over and do what their husbands wanted. I liked how interesting and well-acted some of the lesser characters were - Saleem's lawyer Maryam and the bald Israeli security guy in particular..

Jerusalem looked beautiful as always and the similarities and differences between Jewish and Arab Israelis were nicely highlighted.

Anne's rating 4.5/5 Ian's rating 4.5/5

Omar

Day two of the festival took me from Saudi Arabia to the West Bank.

Omar, Tarek and Amjad live in the West Bank. Omar is a baker, and he's in love with Tarek's sister Nadja. So far, so ordinary - apart from the feats of athleticism that Omar indulges in to get over the Israeli's security wall to visit his friends. The three men organise the night time shooting of an Israeli soldier -Tarek masterminds,  Omar drives and Amjad shoots. This is where things get less ordinary -when undercover agents come after them, it's Omar that gets caught, tortured and imprisoned. To get out of prison, he undertakes to act as an informant but manages to avoid revealing that Amjad was the assassin. An incredible series of double crosses follows and when the credits roll, the jaws of entire audience were on the floor - not unlike the director's previous film Paradise Now which also takes place in the West Bank. The motivation of the main characters in Paradise Now was religious which contrasts with Omar's more political theme.

Omar and Nadja are beautiful to look at and their habit of writing each other love letters to read when they're apart is completely endearing. In an environment that seems crowded and under constant  surveillance this form of communication seems intensely private.We can't help but be deeply affected by their story

Talking about his film, director Hani Abu-Assad says "At the time I was interested in love stories, particularly tragic love stories, and political thrillers, and I wanted to see if these two genres could merge ". This film is evidence that  they can, and that the merger is totally successful. . The love story is more tragic than Romeo and Juliet's, and the chase scenes would do the Bourne Conspiracy credit. As the characters hurtle through narrow alleys and vault walls, the claustrophobic nature of the West Bank is emphasized. Underlying the whole film is Israel's iron grip on the Palestinian people - it's easy to see which side has the upper hand.

The director says "my job is to let the audience in an entertaining way live in a very difficult situation" . He did his job and you will be more than entertained. Don't miss this one.

Anne's rating 5/5 Ian's rating 5/5

5 Broken Cameras

5 Broken Cameras is Emad Burnat's personal account of how his village tries to defend its land between 2005 and 2010. There are two attacks on the land owned by the people of Bil’in. The Israeli army takes a strip of land to build the West Bank barrier (and its associated road) that cuts off villagers off from most of their land. The Jewish settlers from the adjacent settlement of Modi'in Illit, burn and bulldoze olive trees and build more houses and apartments on some of the cut off land.

In 2005 Bil’in petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court (via an Israeli human rights lawyer). On September 4, 2007, the Court ordered the government to change the route of the wall near Bil'in. The next day the same court legalized the parts of Modi'in Illit being built on Bil'in land (more background here).

5 Broken Cameras is not about the court cases taking place across the border but with the situation on the ground. It is about Emad Burnat filming his family trying to farm on the other side of the barrier. It is about the villagers led by two of his friends demonstrating against the barrier in a well known weekly protest. Protesting against settlers putting portable buildings to claim the land and the villagers putting up building of their own in a counter point. Emad also films the soldiers as they come to the village both day and night to arrest men and boys.

The Israeli soldiers don't like being filmed and constantly tell Emad to stop, even when he is in his own house. The settlers are even more outraged at being filmed and far less restrained in their reactions. During the 5 years that Emad films what is going on in and around Bil'in 5 of his cameras are smashed or shot, this coupled with time in jail and time in hospital means that there are gaps in the narrative but that doesn't detract from the impact of the film. The broken cameras punctuate the film and divide it into chapters.

4 years after Bil'in won in the court, the Israeli army started to dismantle the barrier and built a new wall closer to Modi'in Illit and further from Bil'in but still on their land.

5 Broken Cameras is filmed and narrated by Emad Burnat with editing and further direction by Guy Davidi and funding and post production from various other countries.

If you think that the Jewish-Palestinian conflict is too complicated to understand or that the conflict is all about Jews defending themselves from Palestinian aggression then this is a must see film. If you are already aware of the theft of Palestinian land by Israel, then this more personal view of the situation, filmed and narrated by a local villager (rather than an outsider) may appeal to you.

Ian's rating 3.5/5

The Time that Remains

The Time that Remains seems to start out as a biography of director Elia Suleiman's father Fuad and then morphs gradually into an autobiography of Elia himself. It also serves as a chronicle of life in Israel for Palestinians, and (appropriately) kicks off in 1948. The Israeli army is advancing on Nazareth and many citizens are preparing to leave while Fuad fights with the local resistance and narrowly avoids execution.

We fast forward to the 1960's when Fuad is married to Nadia and Elia is growing up. Aunt Olga still lives in the family home and Fuad and Nadia live close by. Their interactions with the neighbours illustrate the close-knit nature of the community. Daily life is illustrated by recurring vignettes. We see life in Nazareth gradually becoming more suffocating and we see Elia become an adult. His father dies and, much later, his Mother's death concludes the film.

This film isn't an easy watch. It moves quite slowly and there's a lot of repetition. There are long stretches (especially towards the end) where there is very little dialogue. There are some bits that will stay with me for a long time, particularly a sixty ton Israeli tank parked outside a home and the gun barrel tracking the occupant as he paces back and forth across the road talking on his cellphone, seemingly oblivious. Almost as poignant was the armoured car outside the nightclub in Ramallah being steadfastly ignored by the dancers.

As is often the case after watching films involving Israel, I came away shaking my head.

Anne's rating 3/5 Ian's rating 3/5

Private

Now, we have been to more films lately than the blog would suggest, so it's clearly time to write about some. Wellington had a Middle Eastern festival in early September called the Date Palm Festival and we went several movies. The best one, I think, was Private. This is the story of a Palestinian family (Mum, Dad and five kids) who live on a hill in the West Bank, situated between an Israeli settlement and a refugee camp. Their two-storey house wouldn't win any architectural awards, being an un-preposessing concrete block box but it is a very nice home inside with all mod cons. Dad is a school headmaster and drives the kids to school in the Mercedes everyday.

The Israeli army decide to occupy the family home because of its strategic position and they take over the top floor, while allowing the family the live on the ground floor. At night, they lock the family into the lounge to sleep, and let them out again in the morning. They aren't allowed visitors, but during the day can come and go fairly freely.

The family dynamics in this movie are just great, and so is watching how each family member deals with the situations. Mum (who is alone in the house during the day with half a dozen soldiers overhead) is dying to move out. By contrast, staunch Dad would rather die than move out. Middle son arranges to move in with one of his schoolmates in the refugee camp but his father forbids it. Oldest son toys with planting a grenade in their makeshift garden greenhouse which the Israelis keep demolishing. Oldest daughter argues with her parents about their plan to send her to med school in Germany, because she'd rather "stay and fight" in Palestine. Littlest son is devastatingly cute and he struggles to understand what is going on.

Watching this film really makes you think about the different levels of publicity human rights violations get, depending on where and when in history they take place. There have been dozens of movies which feature anti-semitic atrocities in WWII, but until recently I'd never seen a movie which involved Israelis maltreating Palestinians. So, Private is well-acted, suspenseful and provides food for thought.

Anne's rating 4/5 Ian's rating 4/5

Paradise Now

We went to see Paradise Now on Tuesday night (26th July), and we had seats in our favourite row, row L. Topically, this was a film about suicide bombers but it didn't seem to be a topic Wellingtonians were keen to explore as there were only about 200 people there (the Embassy holds about 700).

Those who stayed away missed a great film! It was shot in Nablus on the West Bank. Two young motor mechanics, Said and Khaled, are chosen to be the heroes on a suicide mission to Tel Aviv and it follows them for the couple of days leading up to the event. It is well-acted and superbly tense and the plot didn't follow the path I was expecting. There are all sorts of great touches - the bomb-maker with no hands; some of the team helpfully eating Khaled's pita bread sandwiches while he's being videoed making his martyr's speech; Said's Mother reading his coffee grounds at breakfast time and saying "you don't appear to have a future".

There were good contrasts too - the huge one between Tel Aviv's well-maintained modernity, and Nablus' ramshackle antiquity; and the philosophical contrast between those characters in the film who believed that violence was the solution to the Israeli occupation and those who didn't.

The ninety minutes flew by, and after the stunning ending the credits rolled in absolute silence. Gradually, everyone picked their jaws up off the floor and filed out.

Anne's rating 5/5; Ian's rating 4/5

The Zoo

Hands up if you know how many zoos there are in the West Bank? Double points if you can name the town it is in. The town of Qalqiliya is one of those real life situations that you would think was impossible if you read about it in a novel. The town with a zoo that is itself a cage, surrounded by a wall (pdf). A situation taylor-made for a documentary maker and kiwi Hayden Campbell takes advantage.

Everyone plays their part. The star is zoo vet Dr Sami Khader, with a variety of animal co-stars, some alive and some, like the teargassed zebras, are stuffed. Dr Sami is almost irrationally happy (though his humour tinged with sarcasm) in the face of the situation that he is in. Other players include the zoo's visitors, truck drivers, and a wide variety of Israeli soldiers from the incomprehensibly obstreperous, the curious, the bored, the macho clown, the defensive, the american-israeli and even a helpful soldier. The film is interspersed with an interview with an Israeli zoo vet friend of Dr Sami.

The story that holds this all together is Dr Sami's trip to Nablus (about 35km away) to pick up a couple of baboons and return to the zoo. It takes 2 days to complete the trip and involves two trucks, an ambulance, a taxi, red tape, subterfuge, numerous cellphone calls, lots of pleading and begging, luck, three languages, and the use of a white man with a video camera to embarrass soldiers into being slightly more accommodating. All in all a well told view of life for 4,000,000 Palestinians.

Ian's rating 4/5
Anne's rating 4/5