Palestinian struggle finds a new voice in a vital, emerging cinema with Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now – perhaps the most gripping example of this yet. ANDREW BRETTELL reviews.


PALESTINE's lack of nationhood is exasperated by the struggle Palestinian cinema finds getting international recognition. No better example came in 2004 when the Academy of Motion Picture and Sciences declared Elia Suleiman's Divine Intervention ineligible for competition in the Best Foreign Film category, citing Palestine was not a nation recognized by the UN. The decision drew angry debate about the reason for cinema's very existence. In Palestine no argument is needed, films are there to give voice to the unrepresented. Out of Palestine's struggle a vital cinema has grown, a cinema that highlights the plight of a people determined to indeterminacy. Paradise Now, directed by Hany Abu-Assad, is perhaps the most gripping example yet.

Paradise Now goes beyond the stereotyped and demonizing portrayal of terrorism dramatizing the last twenty-four hours of two men, Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) who willingly choose to become suicide bombers. These men are not irrational fundamentalists but are part of a culture marred by occupancy and impotency.

The film begins with a woman, Suha (Lubna Azabal), going through the process of crossing the border into Palestine, a process that is both commonplace and humiliating. Director Hany Abu-Assad has always had a fascination with borders and checkpoints because to document them is to document the Israeli occupation. In Rana's Wedding (2002), and Ford Transit (2002) Israeli controlled checkpoints are the site of violence, inconvenience and, in Rana's Wedding, a bittersweet marriage ceremony. When Suha negotiates the checkpoint at the beginning of Paradise Now, we immediately know what is at stake. Khaled and Said are not only fighting for women like her, but also their sense of self-worth and masculinity. Suha represents not only the strength of Palestine (her father is a venerated martyr) but also its passionate political response (she no longer believes in armed resistance against Israel.) Said is obviously attracted to her but is incapable of acting on his desire because his father's shameful history has emasculated him.

Instead, Said drifts through the streets with forlorn eyes witnessing a poverty stricken topography until he and Khaled are revived by the mission to hit Tel Aviv. Suddenly the film is alive with tension and pathos. We watch members of Hamas preparing the two men for their holy act: they bathe and shave them, they dine with them (recreating the final super), and finally they gently strap C4 to them.

But the mission goes terribly wrong and the two wannabe martyrs spend the rest of the day criss-crossing the border, aborting the mission, running around in circles, waiting, debating and going nowhere. They're in limbo, and while it's difficult to empathize with their decision to return to Tel Aviv, you can't help understand their desire for purpose and identity. To act in some way is better than to remain in this indeterminate "half life".

The genuine emptiness many Palestinians feel about their sense of self-identity, and their powerlessness to find a voice on the world stage has paradoxically encouraged a vital cinema to flourish. Paradise Now is a film that had to be made and is a film that has to be watched.