Paradise Now
Directed by Hani Abu-Assad
Starring Kais Nashif, Ali Suliman and Lubna Azabal
Opens October 27 at Cinema Nova (Melbourne), Paris Cinema (Fox Studios, Sydney) and Palace Nova (Adelaide).
REVIEW BY KIM BULLIMORE
"Every day in the newspapers, we hear of suicide attacks. It is such an extreme act that I began to think, like everyone, how could someone do that — what could drive them to it? It made me realise we never hear their story, their side", said Paradise Now director Hany Abu-Assad.
Abu-Assad's award-winning film offers an uncompromising, insightful and unglorified examination of why young Palestinian men and women give their lives to carry out suicide bombings.
Paradise Now follows two would-be suicide bombers, childhood friends Said and Khaled, who are recruited to carry out a "major operation" in Tel Aviv. Things, however, go dramatically wrong and they are separated, leaving each of them alone to deal with their own beliefs and convictions.
The film, which won numerous prizes at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival, including best European film, the Amnesty International Award and the Audience Prize, is as much about friendship and loyalty as it is a portrait of the illegal Israeli occupation. The film, in contrast to the images we see every day on television and in the media, lays bare the grim and too often concealed reality of Palestinian life under occupation.
Abu-Assad, who co-wrote the film with Bero Bever, succeeds where so much of the world media fails, revealing through Said, Khaled, their families and Suha (the daughter of a well-known resistance fighter), how 38 years of illegal Israeli occupation have dehumanised, humiliated and devastated the lives of ordinary Palestinians.
Actors Kais Nashif and Ali Suliman, who play Said and Khaled, give a raw and powerful portrayal of the two loyal and dedicated friends who not only struggle with their inner convictions, but also realise that their chosen paths may not be the same. Lubna Azabal, who plays Suha, adds a depth to the film, offering us a Palestinian voice that is rarely heard in the corporate media.
Filmed almost totally on location in Nablus and Tel Aviv, Abu-Assad brings an unparalleled sense of reality to the film. Originally setting their location in Gaza, Abu-Assad and his crew were forced to relocate to Nablus due to constant Israeli rocket attacks, only to come under attack again in Nablus. According to Abu-Assad, six German technicians left the production after 20 days, "when there was an Israeli missile attack on a nearby car".
In an interview with Berlinale Snapshots, Nashif recounted, "Nablus was a war zone, so we were confronted with the army every day. It was about survival. Our location was in a valley between five mountains and a lot of checkpoints. It's really difficult to get there. You have to wait for hours. It feels like an open air prison." When three men were killed by the Israeli military in the area where they had been filming the previous night, Abu-Assad and his team finally decided to abandon production in Nablus and relocate to Nazareth.
Watching the film, I recognised all too well many of the places filmed in and around Nablus: the checkpoints, the concrete barriers, the apartheid fence, the wooden towers, Balata refugee camp, the bombed-out Moqata (the PLO's headquarters in Nablus) and the busy streets of Nablus. I also recognised the humour, resilience and steadfastness revealed throughout the film by the "ordinary" Palestinian taxi drivers, students and women, as they went about their daily business, undeterred by Israeli military patrols, roadblocks, gunfire and rocket attacks.
With the "war on terror" in full swing, Paradise Now brings into context a historical and material understanding of why suicide bombings happen. The mainstream corporate media, which rarely mentions the word "occupation" in relation to Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan, all too often presents suicide bombings in a vacuum and as the irrational act of a deranged Islamic fundamentalist. However, as University of Chicago academic Robert Pape notes, what 95% of suicide bombers have in common is not religion but their opposition to imperialism and occupation.
According to Pape's study Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, of the 462 suicide bombings carried out since 1980, half were by secular bombers and there is little evidence that they "hate Western values or hate being immersed in Western society". Instead, what they have in common, says Pape, is that "they are deeply angered by military policies, especially combat troops on territory they prize and that they believe they have no other means to change those policies".
It is this anger and resignation that Abu-Assad brings to the screen through Kahled and Said, but he also brings hope for justice and a way to change the dynamics of resistance and occupation through the character of Suha. Paradise Now is a film that should not be missed by anyone interested in understanding the realities of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Green Left Weekly will be hosting the Melbourne premiere of Paradise Now at Cinema Nova in Lygon Street, Carlton on October 27. Bookings are essential — phone (03) 9639 8622.
[Kim Bullimore lived in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 2004, where she worked with the human rights organisation the International Women's Peace Service. Visit <http://www.iwps.info>.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 12, 2005.
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