Paradise Now
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Movie Reviews of Paradise Now
Movie Review: Saeed refuses to smile
Summary: 5 Stars
In the movie Paradise Now, Saeed is asked to smile by a photographer. The photographer insists, Saeed persists in his refusal to smile. Meet Saeed, a young man living in Nablus in the occupied territories.
Ironically, Saeed means happy in Arabic.
While I spent time in occupied territories, I could always tell the difference between the locals and the foreigners. The ones the grew up there and the ones that were visiting. The local ones rarely, if ever smiled. The ones visiting from abroad smiled liberally, when greeting you, when saying goodbye, when talking about something funny and for no reason at all.
Then we meet Suha, she smiles lots. Guess what? ... she grew up in France. People are nice to her because she is the daughter of a martyr and a hero, also she is cute.
In a Hollywood movie, Suha would make Saeed smile by the end of the movie, at one point you think that surly the movie is going in that direction.
So many similarities with a Hollywood movie
There is a cute leading female.
Two guys dressed in a black suits, which reminded me of the Men In Black movie and the Blues Brothers movie.
Suspense.
One quarter into the movie the suspense was so high, that my friend who came to see the movie with me looked like she couldn't take it. I offered to hold her hand. For about five minutes we both forgot about the north American rule that females are not supposed to hold hands in public and behaved like we would in the middle east despite the fact that my friend is not middle eastern, we held hands. She looked at me and whispered, you must find this even more distressing than I do, I nodded with my head to say that I am ok. I wanted to tell her that everything in this movie is familiar, the language, the mentality, the way people talk, I have seen it all before, only in real life. It must be distressing to be exposed to all this within 15 minutes.
My favorite scene in the Blues Brothers is when they are going around looking for the other members of their band. They knock on a door and a lady with hair curlers opens the doors. She looks at the two men wearing black suits and asks them
lady in hair curlers: Are you guys with the FBI?
Blues Brothers: No Ma'am. We are on a mission from God. We are musicians.
That scene cracks me up each time I see it.
Saeed and his friend are not sure if they are on a mission from god or not. When they discuss the nature of their mission, they don't seem sure if god is behind it or not. You wish they were religious crazy fanatics on a mission from god ...... that is the lie that we have been told in western media, time and again ..... surprise! ...... they are not. Religion plays a role ..... but a very small role in the events that are about to take place.
Paradise Now is not a Hollywood movie
No happy ending
No violence
No car chase scene
No sex
One small brief episode of swearing and it is very brief indeed
As I watched the movie, I wished I could have reach out to Saeed to shake his shoulder. I wished I could tell him, "Saeed! you are young and beautiful, your whole life is ahead of you, don't throw it away". Suha tries hard to play the audience's voice in that movie. She even speaks Arabic with a funny accent to mark her foreignness and out-sidedness. She is treated with polite decorum, but nothing she says seems to address the realities on the ground. She is there in person, but far removed at the same time.
When the movie ended there was complete silence in the whole movie theater. You could have heard a pin drop. In most movies, you can hear the tidbits of conversation about the movie as you walk out. Again, as we walked out, there was complete and stunned silence. Nobody was saying anything, not even to their mobile phone. Everybody was completely and utterly stunned by the movie and so overwhelmed with what they just saw they were speechless.
In short, absolutely brilliant. If you are planning to see it, prepare to see a truly thought provoking movie that will rock your world.
Movie Review: A pair of Palestenians are sent as suicide bombers into Tel Aviv
Summary: 5 Stars
Although my mother would certainly debate the point, acknowledging a political view is not the same thing as endorsing it. So I do not think finding "Paradise Now" to be provocative or compelling constitutes a political position that needs to be articulated or defended. Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) are a pair of Palestinians living in the West Bank. They work together at a garage and are best friends. In response to an Israeli attack, the Palestinian organization to which they belong has decided to retaliate and set up their first mission in two years. Said and Khaled will be sent to Tel Aviv as suicide bombers, using the technique that we have become familiar with from the news: the first bomb will go off and when the rescuers arrive to deal with the dead and dying the second bomb will detonate.
Said and Khaled spend a last night with their families, who do not have any idea what will be happening the next day. The two men are shaved, given haircuts and new suits, so that they can blend in with their intended victims. But when they film their final statements of martyrdom there are problems with the video camera. What follows is not really a comedy of errors, because there is nothing funny about suicide bombers, but director Hany Abu-Assad ("Al Qods Fee Yom Akhar") has a definite sense of irony. The last statements of martyrs are not expected to include shopping tips (to be clear, this is not a funny moment, but rather one that recognizes what strange thoughts go through the mind of someone who is about to go out into the world and blow himself up).
The problems with the videotape are a harbinger of what is to come, as the detailed plan gets off track. Said and Khaled become separated, and the plan that has been put into place is not exactly full of contingencies. However, the extra time gives both men a chance to have second thoughts, each going in a decidedly different direction. This gives the film, co-written by Abu-Assad and his partner Bero Beyer, and opportunity to present different points of views on why a group engages in suicide bombings and why the practice will not result in the desired changes. Jamal (Amer Hiehel) is the brains behind the operation, while Suha (Lubna Azabal) represents what we would think of as being the voice of reason in the film. But there are reasons on both sides and a reasonable assumption is that viewers have already made their minds up on this issue before they even sit down and watch "Paradise Now."
When things go wrong with the plan there is a sense in which this 2005 film starts to become a thriller. Granted, one of the questions is clearly whether or not these human bombs are going to go off. But "Paradise Now" is not trying to be a thriller. Instead it is finding space between the decision and the act to reconsider both. I have been thinking over whether the fade from the final shot of the film is a poetic touch by Abu-Assad or an effort at ambiguity. At this point I am inclined to go with the former, especially since I have little doubt that viewers will impose their own ideology when deciding to solve the apparent ambiguity. This is not a movie that is trying to change the minds of its viewers, just one that is trying to get them to see things from a different perspective. Ultimately, that is what may well prove more disquieting than the thought of seeing bombs going off.
Movie Review: a great insight story of how
Summary: 5 Stars
those terrorist core manipulators plowing on the simple-minded young men, promising them a 'paradise' for their afterlives, assuring them to bomb themselves up is an 'honor only for the a few'. what a pathetic disgusting story behind the headline news. why those manipulators always asked others to sacrifice for 'the course'? why they never led the charge and blowed themselves up first? these mindless young pawns are too stupid and too pathetic about anything about the life. they never know that it is because of these bunch vicious and heartless manipulators who make their future so hopelessly bleak, they destroy the infra-structure where they live and almost wipe out any possibility of prosperity and opportunity. it is these manipulators who destroy their palestinian hometowns instead of isralis. their montrous purpose of using a groundless excuse to blame everything on the israle, the jewish people is exactly the same as that of hitler's and the nazi's. a blaming game total cluelessly come from nowhere but still neverthelessly worked on those young souls. why we never saw any suicide bombers aged over forty? why those manipulators are always older enought to fool the young ones? they first make these young people hopeless, making their future a complete void of any hope, then they push them further down to the point-of-no-return emptiness. this cunning manipulation is actually similar to what's happening in america now, using blind 'patriotism' and 'insecurity' of most americans to do whatever those manipulators wish to do. 'business is always bigger than wars. only wars could make profit for the business.' so you still failed to see what's happening around you? 'support your troop' actually is another manipulation trick, because our troop is the means to generate and spread the corporates and their business whereever they would like to go. and we're paying for those corporates to make profit of their own, their feedbacks are not going back to us but a few. why a nation boasts itself the most richest and most powerful in the world, its citizens are without health insurance coverage? why those people on the hills always vetoed a national health plan? because it's not profitable for those manipulators, and since those senators, congressmen already passed laws to benefit their own health and their families, why should they bother to care about us? their futures are already secured yet they're still trying so hard to make our future so unsecured. why? watch this movie as a thinking being without any stupid narrow-minded ideology, then you might know all the reasons behind all the chaos, and you'd know why when you pick up the mails from your mailbox, seeing those snowballing-like monthly bills and their due dates of your family health insurance, cars insurance, medical statements, mortgage payments, the creditcards bills....you feel so insecured in the richest and most powerful nation on this planet. i'd just wish that before god could bless america, he could bless us, the common people first. :(Movie Review: Topic deserving of the focus...
Summary: 5 Stars
I just returned from some time in the middle east (my first trip) and experienced a world of paradoxes. Arabs and Muslims seem to profess brotherly love and cohesion among themselves, and then totally dismiss each other in reality. The Iraqis are suspicious of Turkey and Iran (not Arabs but still Muslim), the Turks distrust the Kurds, the Kurds seem to trust no one but themselves, the Saudis live in their own insular world supported by oil money and imported labor, and I firmly believe if it weren't for their conflict with Israel, the Palestinians would be mostly marginalized and/or ignored by their Arab/Muslim cousins. I also don't believe in "historical rights" to land. Given any spot of land on this planet, all you have to do is choose a certain century, and a different people occupied that chunk of land. So, based on that, I have little sympathy for Israeli or Palestinian "historical" claims to middle eastern land. Heck, the "holy land" was occupied by Rome at some time, so Italy should even be able to claim something based on that faulty logic. Alexander conquered it as well...maybe Greece should lay dibs on the middle east too.
BUT, back to the movie. Very well done! Palestinians are people. Regardless of what some of them are capable of doing, it's ignorant and stupid not to try to understand what's motivating their actions. Though there may not be good reasons for blowing yourself up (very few good reason for that in my book), there are obviously reasons why it happens (flimsy reasons or not). This movie doesn't offer any concrete answers, but takes a very human look at the possible motivations and environments that shape and influence people into even considering such actions. The main characters are loosely defined, given a bit of history, and then we simply see who they are at this moment in time in their lives.
The cinematography is great, the acting solid, and the topic quite timely. Unfortunately too many people out there won't think enough about this. They'll just "react". They bomb, shoot, blow-up, rant, rave, dis the Amazon reviews in favor of this movie, and discount anything that doesn't agree with their view. Way to ignore the one tool that would best help the world solve problems like this...your intellect.
My biggest complaint is it would have been good to see the Israeli side of this story a bit. I have one American Jewish friend who said once, "Were they nuts? Why the hell did they build a Jewish nation in the middle of the middle east surrounded by millions of Arabs who HATE them? Didn't we have some extra land in Montana to offer up or something?"
And the real reason for these reviews...will you like the movie? Hmmm...depends. Bottom line is if you're open minded about race and religious relations in the world, then "yes", you'll definitely get something out of this. If you're hardline pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, this probably isn't the movie for you.
Movie Review: There's more going on than we realize...
Summary: 5 Stars
Paradise Now a gripping film on the lives of Palestinian suicide bombers. Having spent a semester abroad in the middle east in college, I was particularly interested (and passionate) about this subject. I left my 3 months in Israel/Palestine more frustrated and confused than when I initially came (my initial thoughts/views were quickly destroyed when confronted with real life), and this film doesn't attempt to solve the problem, merely shed a more complete light on the plight of Palestinians. A few things of note in the film:
* The media and prevailing assumption of the West (especially in the evangelical church) is that suicide bombers choose this route as a vengeful, spiteful, and somewhat lustful FIRST resort of dealing with the Israeli/Palestinian issue. While the film doesn't shy away from the heroism that is fostered among suicide bombers in Palestinian culture, it makes a compelling case that this method of suicide bombing is but a desperate last resort. "If one cannot be equal in life, then at least one can be equal in death..."; this is buts one rationale offered. (This is not a justification of suicide bombings, but rather an attempt at understanding. Big difference...)
* Along the same line, the film does a powerful job of showing the everyday reality that leads many young men (and a few women) to choose suicide bombing as a means to not only further the resistance, but also as a means of escaping the hell that is life in present day Palestine. It's difficult to watch a human being resort to such desperate measures.
* The film also is careful to note that not all Palestinians are extremists. Many are conflicted, oppressed, yet hopeful proponents of peace and justice. Thus, the Palestinian people are vastly more complex than the media (and the church in the West) gives them credit for.
* The entire issue is incredibly more complex than we realize. There are deep, deep cultural/ethnic/religious issues at play, issues that mere diplomacy won't fix. Western political pragmatism and strong arming won't cut it. Carrots and sticks by the U.N. won't do it either. Until the world immerses itself in the middle eastern culture (honor/shame, prominence of land, community over the individual, etc.) and 'contextualizes' a plan for peace, our attempts to 'help' will only breed more suffering.
* Finally, a parting shot: maybe if we owned up to the reality that both the Palestinians and Israelis have made some crucial mistakes, and both have legitimate gripes, we could then provide a platform to make some progress. But this involves leveling the playing field, which is a far cry from present-day reality, as evidenced by our own nation's blank checks and blind eyes to Israel's campaigns against the Palestinians. Again, this doesn't at all make suicide bombings a good or right thing, but understanding leads to healing...