The filmmakers faced great difficulties making the film on location. A land mine exploded 300 meters away from the set. While filming in Nablus, Israeli helicopter gunships launched a missile attack on a car near the film's set one day, prompting six crew members to abandon the production indefinitely. Paradise Now's location manager was kidnapped by a Palestinian faction during the shoot and was not released until Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's office intervened. In an interview with the Telegraph, Hany Abu-Assad said, "If I could go back in time, I wouldn't do it again. It's not worth endangering your life for a movie."In Paradise Now the suicide bombing is motivated by the desperate economic and political conditions of Palestinians, channeled and perhaps used by religious extremists; in Time of Favor the suicide bombing is tied to Jewish religious extremism and a love rejection. While the topic is still suicide bombing, clearly in its origin more a Palestinian than Israeli action, there is no glimmer in this Israeli film that would connect suicide bombing to real life conditions. In the same sense, Michal, the extremist Rabbi's daughter, makes points about the difficulty of living in a settlement from an Israeli point of view, but the idea that the settlement might cause difficulty for Palestinians or encroach on territory doesn't seem to come to mind. In this sense, while on closely related themes, the films don't really talk to each other, yet they offer important insights into both of their respective societies. -- A film that is about dialogue is Encounter Point.
15 years ago
5 comments:
That is a great point. Michal does talk about the difficulty of living in a settlement, but doesn't give any thought to the plight of the Palestinians. The lack of any thought given to the Palestinians suggests that they are almost invisible. Kind of like a kid who acts out toward their parents to get any attention, even if it is negative. One might conclude that a Palestinian has to throw a grenade just to get an Israel to recognize that they are there.
Hmm...I think these are some pretty important films to watch, especially for Americans. We never get to see the Palestinian side of the story, and the media regularly paints a far more violent story than what is actually true. It's too bad, as we know that there won't be a big Hollywood film depicting the struggle over there accurately, so it's difficult to be informed about what's happening and what's propaganda...
Marie, I question where the consideration for any Israeli was in "Paradise Now". We can't at one point be critical for a film for failing to consider the alternate side, and at the other point ignore a film which does the exact same thing.
As far as throwing a grenade being the only option, I will only state that I never believe violence to be an acceptable solution to issues, and we see Palestinians referencing Ghandi and the Indian independence movement in "Encounter Point". Non-violence is always an option.
I agree that non-violence is always an option. But I can also understand how individuals (on both sides) might feel such strong depression and political pressure that they can no longer see non-violence as an option. Living in a world of violence may cause someone to believe in violence. I found Paradise Now to be better at portraying this thought process than Time of Favor, even though no thought is given to the lives of Israeli civilians.
I think the pressure that many people in these societies is very strong. There has to be some reason why people always view Israel and Palestine in this way, it's because things like this are shown frequently and show up in even their own films. I don't think they can even get upset with America having this stereotype because they sometimes bring it on themselves and even involve it in their own films.
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