A tale of terrorists with human faces in the Middle East. Two young Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus volunteer for suicide bombing missions against Israelis. These two lifelong chums have more-or-less drifted along through their 20s, making a few shekels helping out at an auto repair shop. Like so many young adults in Palestine and throughout the Arab world, their prospects for much of a future seem dim and undefined. Compared to the drab existence they now lead, the trappings of martyrdom seem compelling.
This film's strength lies in its quasi-documentary recounting of the process of establishing martyrdom. There is the first step of selection: finding reliable persons for the task. There is some informal orientation, more a matter of brief pep talks and aphorisms delivered during hastily arranged meetings with cell leaders, sites for which change constantly to evade detection and arrest. For example, Jamal (Amer Hlehel), the handler for these two young men, says at one point that " death is better than inferiority." The new recruits hasten to agree.
There are preparations and arrangements for the mission itself. This step seems especially helter-skelter in the film narrative. Things never seem to come off as planned. It doesn't help that one of the young men, Said (Kais Nashef), is a loose cannon, wild and unpredictable. His personal motive for martyrdom is to redeem the honor of his dead father, who was forced by Israeli strong arms to act as a collaborator, bringing shame upon himself and his family. Said's a demoralized, angry fellow, so different from Hassan, the Pakistani terrorist in "The War Within," who was a chilling study in cool, burnished, self contained passion.
Said is also quite different from his buddy Khaled (Ali Suliman). We see each man making videos for their families to view after they die, saying their goodbyes, stating the reasons for their acts: Said with his usual barely controlled fervor, Khaled more soft spoken, quiet, possibly ambivalent. We never learn whether Khaled had a personal motive beyond the usual intentions of a political and religious nature. The figure of Khaled seems to stand for a more unformed, unimpassioned type of volunteer, a sort of lackluster person, someone with little in life to lose through the act of self sacrifice.
Arguing the other side, the anti-terrorism theme, is Suha (Lubna Azabal), a European-born woman who is the daughter of a Palestinian martyr father. Her response to her father's violent past and death is to serve as a human rights activist opposed to the Palestinian resistance. After Khaled tells her that his reward for martyring himself will be to enter Paradise, Suha tells him that " Paradise is (just) in your head." There is a flicker of mutual love interest between Suha and Said, but only a flicker, which merely serves to underscore the degree to which Said is married to the redemption of his family's honor; he has no time for women.
This film nicely complements "The War Within," the other new movie that puts a human face on Islamic terrorism. Both films use their principal characters to convey opposing religio-political perspectives. Comparing the two films, "Paradise" lacks the nuanced human depth in the lead character portrayals we saw in "War Within." Instead "Paradise" depends more upon action and conventional psychodynamic/biographic rationales to define the protagonists' motives. So "Paradise" is in a way more superficial. But its meticulous attention to the recruitment and preparation process for suicide bombers in Palestine is instructive and, I think, unique in narrative film.
The film's Dutch-Palestinian director, Nany Abu-Assad, also made "Ford Transit" (2003), a clever movie that discloses aspects of daily life in Palestine from the perspective of people riding in a broken down shuttle bus that serves a refugee village. "Paradise Now" received the Blue Angel and Amnesty International Awards at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. (In Arabic). My rating: 7/10 (B). (Seen on 11/17/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.
This film's strength lies in its quasi-documentary recounting of the process of establishing martyrdom. There is the first step of selection: finding reliable persons for the task. There is some informal orientation, more a matter of brief pep talks and aphorisms delivered during hastily arranged meetings with cell leaders, sites for which change constantly to evade detection and arrest. For example, Jamal (Amer Hlehel), the handler for these two young men, says at one point that " death is better than inferiority." The new recruits hasten to agree.
There are preparations and arrangements for the mission itself. This step seems especially helter-skelter in the film narrative. Things never seem to come off as planned. It doesn't help that one of the young men, Said (Kais Nashef), is a loose cannon, wild and unpredictable. His personal motive for martyrdom is to redeem the honor of his dead father, who was forced by Israeli strong arms to act as a collaborator, bringing shame upon himself and his family. Said's a demoralized, angry fellow, so different from Hassan, the Pakistani terrorist in "The War Within," who was a chilling study in cool, burnished, self contained passion.
Said is also quite different from his buddy Khaled (Ali Suliman). We see each man making videos for their families to view after they die, saying their goodbyes, stating the reasons for their acts: Said with his usual barely controlled fervor, Khaled more soft spoken, quiet, possibly ambivalent. We never learn whether Khaled had a personal motive beyond the usual intentions of a political and religious nature. The figure of Khaled seems to stand for a more unformed, unimpassioned type of volunteer, a sort of lackluster person, someone with little in life to lose through the act of self sacrifice.
Arguing the other side, the anti-terrorism theme, is Suha (Lubna Azabal), a European-born woman who is the daughter of a Palestinian martyr father. Her response to her father's violent past and death is to serve as a human rights activist opposed to the Palestinian resistance. After Khaled tells her that his reward for martyring himself will be to enter Paradise, Suha tells him that " Paradise is (just) in your head." There is a flicker of mutual love interest between Suha and Said, but only a flicker, which merely serves to underscore the degree to which Said is married to the redemption of his family's honor; he has no time for women.
This film nicely complements "The War Within," the other new movie that puts a human face on Islamic terrorism. Both films use their principal characters to convey opposing religio-political perspectives. Comparing the two films, "Paradise" lacks the nuanced human depth in the lead character portrayals we saw in "War Within." Instead "Paradise" depends more upon action and conventional psychodynamic/biographic rationales to define the protagonists' motives. So "Paradise" is in a way more superficial. But its meticulous attention to the recruitment and preparation process for suicide bombers in Palestine is instructive and, I think, unique in narrative film.
The film's Dutch-Palestinian director, Nany Abu-Assad, also made "Ford Transit" (2003), a clever movie that discloses aspects of daily life in Palestine from the perspective of people riding in a broken down shuttle bus that serves a refugee village. "Paradise Now" received the Blue Angel and Amnesty International Awards at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. (In Arabic). My rating: 7/10 (B). (Seen on 11/17/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.