Its at one of these checkpoints where we meet Suha, a well to do Palestinian born in France. Suha tolerates but doesnt like having her bags searched by Israeli soldiers. But Suha does take a liking to Said, who was born in a refugee camp and is from the opposite end of economic spectrum from her. Their differences are set in bold relief when Suha questions Said about what movie genre he prefers.
Said asks if theres a genre for boring, one that reflects what his life is like. In that moment we sense one of the things that will drive Said to accept a mission as a suicide bomber.
Its not so much that hes bored but rather that he feels without hope. He sees Nablus as a prison with the Israelis as the wardens. He cannot imagine a future where he can live with dignity and in his mind a life without dignity is worthless. Said and Suha have very different views on life, but they both must live with the legacy left by their fathers. Suhas father was a hero who died for the Palestinian cause. But she would rather have him alive than to be proud of his memory.
She passionately insists that the only way to peace is through dialogue. Violence, she says, only gives the Israelis an alibi to do whatever they want to the Palestinians. Said, on the other hand, must cope with the fact that his father was a collaborator who was executed. In preparation for their martyrdom, the two men undergo ritual ablutions. While religion may be secondary to political aims, in terms of motivation it plays a primary role in solidifying their resolve to carry out the attack.
The movie follows Said and Khaled very closely on their journey from low level mechanics to their attempts for martyr status. She assumes a stance of forgiveness towards her husband and copes with the economic situation in Palestine much better than her son. When Jamal, a non-family member, enters into the house, she looks almost sheepish as she wraps her scarf around her head.
Her demure manner depicts her as a more passive Muslim woman who takes a silent stance against violence. Suha takes a more active role in proclaiming non-violence as the best action to take against the Israelis.
Suha has lived outside of Palestine and emulates a more Westernized Palestinian. She is not depicted as a overly devout Muslim woman, yet still champions the cause of non-violent action to reach Palestinian autonomy. While the conflict between Israel and Palestine is rooted in inherently religious struggles based on centuries - old claims to holy land, the most recent outbreak of violence can be linked to the emigration of European Jews to Palestine in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries.
The great influx of Jews into the Arab state caused an array of political issues linked to land rights and competition for resources.
With the support of the British and American governments, Jews were largely successful in the effort to create a safe haven against European animosities and eventually were granted their own state with the creation of Israel in Through the establishment of a Jewish state, thousands of Arabs were marginalized and Palestine dwindled in size.
After a series of battles and conflicts, the Israeli state has continued their quest to expand their land mass, pushing thousands of Arabs into refugee camps. Against UN sanctions, the Israelis continue to occupy many territories that are rightfully Palestinian. A Child Learns to Appreciate Yiddish. A Comprehensive Jewish Encyclopedia. The Dark Side of the UN.
Dennis Ross was Doomed to Fail. Dershowitz to the Defense of Israel. The Development of a Nation. Explaining Zionism. The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies. A Flawed Portrait of Yitzhak Rabin. Fun Facts About American Jews. A Promised Land. The Harmonica of Hope. An Illuminating Passover Story. Is Michael Oren An Ally? Jewish India. The Jewish Influence on American Politics. Learning from the State Department's Past. Little Help for Israel. Looking at Terror in a New Light.
Muddling Fact and Fiction. The Oldest Tanakh. That scene is the entirety of Paradise Now captured in just a few minutes: the helplessness of facing an unmovable force, the rapid escalation of conflict, and the choice to demonstrate resilience by destruction instead of compromise. That is the ebb and flow of the first Palestinian film ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a movie that was mired in controversy from its production to its release, a crushing cinematic experience that feels as relevant now as when it hit the festival circuit in The daughter of a Palestinian resistance leader, Suha has returned from abroad to live in the city Nablus in the West Bank.
The act of living in Paradise Now is itself an act of resistance, and yet as Palestinians in the film say over and over again, their living is in a prison, and their resistance only results in more devastation. So why continue to live? Suha, wearing a jauntily tied silk scarf and carrying a leather suitcase, approaches a checkpoint leading to Nablus. We see her face and its look of set determination; we watch her in profile as she walks through the cement barriers, we see her from behind as she approaches the guards and presents her pass.
The man rifles through her suitcase, pulling out clothes. He says nothing to her—gives her first an assessing look, then a dismissive one, until she is free to go. Another soldier had a rifle trained on her the whole time. And as she passes through the checkpoint, she sees dozens of other people, men and women and children, carrying luggage and plastic grocery bags and all sorts of items, all of them accustomed to this process, all of them surveilled, assessed, and judged.
It is a scene without dialogue, mirroring how Paradise Now will eventually end, and yet one that gets its point across immediately and entirely. Reality is intolerable in Paradise Now. The two men working on that car know this, and they talk about it, and yet what is there to do? Said Kais Nashef , the first man from the car scene, is quiet but steely, with an unflinching gaze and unexpectedly gorgeous green eyes. The second man is his best friend Khaled Ali Suliman , brash and gregarious, affectionate and goofy with his younger sister and resentful of his father.
They let him choose which leg he wanted to keep. He chose the right. Writer and director Hany Abu-Assad and his co-writers Bero Beyer and Pierre Hodgson present a sort of cultural shorthand throughout Paradise Now , one in which everyone has a shared frame of reference about what has happened to their people over decades and generations. Men mention how their grandfathers were displaced by the creation of Israel in in The First Intifada, which Khaled references, was from to and saw the deaths of Israelis and 1, Palestinians.
The Second Intifada, during which Paradise Now is set, took place from to or , depending on whose narrative you accept, and approximately 1, Israelis and more than 3, Palestinians died. What has changed in the 14 years since the release of Paradise Now?
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