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Humor amid Palestinian
sadness
By Beverly Andrews
LONDON - As the conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians continues to spiral towards disaster few
would - or could - find humor in this daily cycle of
violence.
But Palestinian director Elia Suleiman
does just that. In his latest award-winning film,
Divine Intervention, he looks at life in Israel
today from a Palestinian perspective. The director uses
humor to highlight the painful absurdity of life under
occupation.
Suleiman takes the main role of ES
and plays the son of a Palestinian businessman living in
Jerusalem whose ordered life is completely shattered
when his father collapses with a heart attack. ES finds
his life is now divided between daily trips to the
hospital to visit his ailing father, while also trying
to maintain his relationship with a Palestinian woman
living in Ramallah.
But even simple travel is no
longer possible in present-day Israel and his life is
now filled with the same frustration that many who live
there experience as they struggle to maintain some kind
of normal existence while living in the middle of chaos.
ES's life is further complicated by the fact
that his lover lives in Ramallah and cannot cross into
Jerusalem, so their meetings take place in a deserted
lot next to an Israeli checkpoint.
The film
mixes the surreal with brutal reality as we see the
difference between the daily lives of many Palestinians
and the lives they fantasize for themselves. One scene
shows ES and his lover seated in his car and he is
dreams about blowing up a balloon with the face of
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the front.
As the balloon floats over the heads of the
security guards, they are torn between trying to shoot
it down or simply standing and watching it as it floats
away. By the time they have made a decision to shoot it
down, it is too late and the balloon gently glides away
into the heart of Jerusalem.
Because of the war,
Elia Suleiman chose to shoot Divine Intervention
in Paris at an army camp. In his film diary, which he
kept while shooting, he talks about the problems this
posed, "The landscape needed to be changed to look like
home and the road had to be made steady for tracking the
camera."
"The chief of the 'department of
deception', our set decorator - nicknamed Picasso -
painted the tank a desert yellow to fit an Israeli
color. He did not forget to add a blank V- a mark found
on certain Israeli tanks - on its side. As the colonel
and I had agreed, I was the 'chief operator' on the set,
it was I who gave the orders, and it was I who did the
countdown for the explosion and said 'action', which in
this case became 'fire'," he writes.
The filming
bizarrely coincided with a visit from Israeli leader
Ariel Sharon to France. An irony which, of course, did
not escape the attention of Suleiman. "While I was
destroying Israeli tanks, a demonstration against the
visit of Ariel Sharon was taking place in Paris."
Shot in the form of a Buster Keaton silent
comedy, Divine Intervention not only highlights
the tragic-comic aspects of life under occupation but
also looks at the peculiar situation in which many
Palestinians living within the borders of Israel now
find themselves.
Suleiman states, "We
Palestinians living in Israel are the shy ones. The
inhibited. We act as if we're closet-case Palestinians.
Our Palestinian sisters and brothers in the West Bank
and Gaza generally ignite uprisings first, and then we
join in, but not without our additional original ghetto
aesthetics of Israel department store burning. It is our
sisters and brothers who keep reminding us of our silent
and tragic existence."
As the film progresses,
its tone gradually changes from one of gentle humor to
that of simmering anger. Perhaps the most controversial
moment in the film occurs when Israeli soldiers use a
cardboard cutout of a female suicide bomber for target
practice, only to find the figure magically come to
life. She then turns into an avenging ninja who takes on
the squadron and wins. The sequence is very disturbing,
but in the context of the film, it seems less a cry for
violence but rather a need to feel empowered.
Divine Intervention is one of the best
ever accounts of what it is to live in a war zone. The
film shows the daily violence that many now take for
granted, as well as the overall sense of humiliation
that Palestinians experience on a daily basis. The film
also highlights the ability that humans have to adapt to
almost any way of life.
But Divine
Intervention also suggests that this situation
cannot go on forever. The final scene in the film shows
ES and his mother sitting inside their home watching a
pressure cooker as it overflows.
(Inter Press
Service)
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