Paradise Now
Thanks to World Movies, I’m getting to watch different cinema from different countries. Last night, I stayed up late, watching this Palestinian-Arabic movie, Paradise Now. Set in Nablus, a small town on the West Bank, it is the story of two men recruited as suicide bombers against (what they see as) the unethical and brutal Israeli occupation. I mentioned ‘what they see as’, because, while I do believe that the Palestinians were originally unjustly pushed out of their land, their tactics haven’t always been ethical or practical either.
I found that the movie did a good job of putting a very human face to the two suicide bombers - at the same time, I didn’t get the feeling that it condoned violence. If anything, Sara, a girl that one of the bombers likes, is the voice of an alternate view, that it is possible to resist without taking recourse to violence. It is easy to see what attracts the young men to violence - living in depressing, prison-like conditions, lacking the means to better their lives, the shame of having been ‘conquered’. The contrast between shiny Tel Aviv and falling-apart Nablus is stark.
The ‘leaders’ of the resistance promise the young men, Sa’id and Khaled glory, a place in paradise and the assurance that their families will be taken care of. One of the most disconcerting moments in the movie was when Khaled presents his farewell ‘martyrs’ speech to a video camera, and the man who recruits him munches away on the sandwiches that Khaled’s mother has packed that morning. Scenes like this helped to make the resistance fighters somewhat ambiguous figures - driven by patriotism, but also perhaps by self-interest and a hankering for fame in a very narrowly defined world?
What was missing was an Israeli counter-view, but then, perhaps it would have been difficult to humanise the suicide bombers, if seen from the eyes of their adversaries? I’m not going to reveal the end, but it was interesting for its lack of certainty. Watch this one if you can. (Later on, I figured that it was nominated for and won some Oscars as well).
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