Although it has dominated the world’s news agenda for nearly half a century, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only became the subject of political films in the early 1980s, and its popularity on celluloid has increased in recent years.
It all started with Hanna K. back in 1983, which was co-written and directed by Costa-Gavras. This wasn’t exactly new ground for the French director of Greek origin, who was quite famous for making political thrillers largely based on real people and real events. Gravas had already tackled prickly topics such as the fascist Greek regime in his movie entitled Z (1969), torture in communist Czechoslovakia through L’Aveu (The Confession, 1970), counterinsurgency methods in Uruguay in State of Siege (1972), French totalitarianism under Marshal Petain’s rule during the Second World War through Section Special (1975) and, finally, US-South American intrigues in Missing (1982).
Hanna K. dared to deal with the touchy issue of land ownership by Palestinians in Israel. The story revolved about a lawyer (played by Oscar nominee Jill Clayburgh) who finds herself torn between her Israeli lover (who happens to be Jerusalem’s district attorney) and an enigmatic Palestinian man whom she eventually defends against him.
Ignored and soon forgotten, Hollywood gave both film and filmmaker the cold shoulder, resulting in the decline of Clayburgh’s promising career and Costa-Gavras having to make amends with The Music Box (1989) and Amen (2002). The former was about a Hungarian immigrant who, when accused of war crimes committed 50 years earlier, insists that his daughter (a very successful lawyer) defend him in court. The latter dealt with the Holocaust from a German perspective and raised the issue of the complicity of indifference.
Costa-Gravas was far from the only director to embark on such a journey.
In 1987, Urs Al-Jalil (Wedding in Galilee) hit the Cannes Film Festival like a tidal wave as it clenched the FIPRESCI Prize. Directed by Michel Khleifi (Palestinian, born 1950 in Nazareth and residing in Belgium) it told the story of a Palestinian seeking Israeli permission to wave curfew so he can give his son a fine wedding.
Next up, late Egyptian director Atef El-Tayeb’s Nagi El-Ali (1991) dealt with the rise and assassination in London of the Palestinian political cartoonist of the same name. El-Ali had infuriated the Palestinian high command with his drawings criticizing its policies and then-leader Yasser Arafat. El-Tayeb’s film was the first from Egypt to deal directly with Palestinian resistance movements — throwing the Lebanese civil war and forced expulsion of the PLO from Beirut into the plot for good measure.
It wasn’t until 14 years later, though, that another Egyptian film director lensed a portrayal of the Arab-Israeli conflict, this time with a 278-minute epic presenting the history of the Palestinian nation through the memories of a dying fighter. The film was Yousry Nasrallah’s critically acclaimed Bab El-Shams (The Gate of the Sun, 2005), which was adapted for screen from a novel by Elias Khoury.
Rashid Masharawi, a Palestinian living in exile in the Netherlands, played a major role in making Palestinian films. For him, the source of finance — whether from France, Holland, Germany or even Israel itself — didn’t matter as long as it served his cause. His Hatta Ish’aar Aakhar (Until Further Notice, 1994) depicts 24 hours in the life of a family during a curfew announced by the Israeli army in a Palestinian refugee camp on the Gaza Strip in 1993.
In Haifa (1996), he tells the story of a refugee camp fool nicknamed Haifa after the “city of his love and hope” and knows more than anyone else about the lives and secrets of others in the camp reflecting an insight into the current Palestinian mind.
In Ticket to Jerusalem (2002), Masharawi introduces a Palestinian movie projectionist who travels from camp to camp to show movies to the children. He meets a schoolteacher who wants to arrange a show in Jerusalem, but Palestinians aren’t allowed to enter the city, let alone with cinema equipment. He eventually smuggles the equipment in and the show takes place. His latest installment Intizar (Attente, 2005) follows the search for an acting talent in numerous refugee camps across Jordan, Syria and Lebanon for the new National Palestinian Theater. The film shows the insurmountable difficulties faced including harassment at check points, borders and barricades.
Meanwhile, Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now (2005), which won a Golden Globe, was one of this year’s Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Language Film. Abu-Assad (born in Nazareth 1961 and living in the Netherlands) gained international recognition for his controversial film about two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack. The film also garnered considerable notoriety after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences designated the film as a submission from the Palestinian Authority, rather than Palestine.
Abu-Assad’s earlier work Al-Qods Fee Yom Akhar (also released with the alternative English title of Rania’s Wedding, 2002) shows the hardship of life in occupied Palestine through the story of a 17-year-old girl who wants to get married to a man of her own choosing.
These scattered efforts (and there are more to follow) cultivate a body of work that expresses the suffering and frustration of a nation deprived of its right to exist and plays a crucial part in bringing its aspirations to the screen so it reaches ordinary people allover the world.
It is no coincidence that Steven Spielberg’s Munich was nominated for an Oscar at the same time as Abu-Assad’s film. Another film in the same competition, Syriana, only proves how the focus in the film industry is currently shifting towards the Middle East.
Looking at the numerous films (either just released or in the pipeline) dealing with the Iraqi war or September 11, one only hopes that in the coming years the West will show more interest in Arab cinema as the case was in the past with Chinese and Iranian films. et
In a career that has spanned nearly 30 years, Mohamed Khan has helmed some of the nation’s most memorable films — and commanded some of the most prominent actors in the region. A regular Egypt Today columnist, he may be reached on his personal email at mokh@soficom.com.eg >
