Those of you who are heading the theaters to watch Palestinian film showing refugee camps - bare footed kids with running noses , or poor women weeping miserably over their loved ones who were killed by the Israeli soldiers..... are in for a major disappointment ! Elia Suleiman puts on screen the OTHER Palestinian : the highly sophisticated intellect who is torn between the nothingness of his home town - ghetto like Nazareth , and his almost impossible love life on the Jerusalem - Ramalla checkpoint , watching impotently the daily satiric yet agonizing incidents at the Israeli checkpoint from his car , and time and time again , amidst the harsh reality and killing routine we find him escaping to fantasy , and it is these fantasy dream-like scenes that make the reality of the film .
A Palestinian woman goes through the extremely secured Israeli checkpoint and passes to the other side causing the checkpoint tower to collapse . The woman in the film is the all-mighty woman, she is the mother , spouse , and daughter of the Palestinian society who takes matters into her own hands and who makes the whole world to bow and bend in front of her strength . She is the Palestinian Ninja fighter who refuses to be the martyr. She is blown up to a higher level becoming a Jesus like figure ,yet not turning the other cheek but fighting and setting new rules for the other side.The scene is full of contradictions: the highly equipped Israeli commando fighters against the solemn Palestinian who merely fights with stones[bringing to mind the first Intifada],and political symbols such as the map of the Palestinian shape boomerang and the appearance of the Palestinian flag underneath the Israelis feet . The film is funny ,even hilarious, enormously witty ,and the language diverts from direct and realistic to symbolic and surreal. Elia Suleiman fluently speaks both languages ,telling the story - or stories - of thousands of Palestinians and yet telling his own saga, in a voice so hush-hush ,clever ,subtle and so artistic that brilliantly makes this film a masterpiece.
Maha Haj-Assal NAZARETH .
A Palestinian woman goes through the extremely secured Israeli checkpoint and passes to the other side causing the checkpoint tower to collapse . The woman in the film is the all-mighty woman, she is the mother , spouse , and daughter of the Palestinian society who takes matters into her own hands and who makes the whole world to bow and bend in front of her strength . She is the Palestinian Ninja fighter who refuses to be the martyr. She is blown up to a higher level becoming a Jesus like figure ,yet not turning the other cheek but fighting and setting new rules for the other side.The scene is full of contradictions: the highly equipped Israeli commando fighters against the solemn Palestinian who merely fights with stones[bringing to mind the first Intifada],and political symbols such as the map of the Palestinian shape boomerang and the appearance of the Palestinian flag underneath the Israelis feet . The film is funny ,even hilarious, enormously witty ,and the language diverts from direct and realistic to symbolic and surreal. Elia Suleiman fluently speaks both languages ,telling the story - or stories - of thousands of Palestinians and yet telling his own saga, in a voice so hush-hush ,clever ,subtle and so artistic that brilliantly makes this film a masterpiece.
Maha Haj-Assal NAZARETH .