palestinian – PopCult Reviews

Patreon Pick – Gaza mon amour

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month, those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Bekah Lindstrom.

Gaza mon amour (2020)
Written and directed by Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser

The popular image of something and reality are often oceans apart, especially when we in the West conceptualize something. At the time of this writing, Gaza is something beyond decency, brutally ravaged by a genocide that just keeps going in broad daylight. That doesn’t mean life has always been like this for the Palestinians. They have had a persistent resiliency, even while walled off and treated in the most subhuman manner. The human spirit is a tough thing to extinguish. It isn’t impossible, but it can happen. Gaza mon amour is a film about the persistence of the heart in the latter years of a person’s life and how the desire for love lives on.

Movie Review – Gaza Fights For Freedom

Gaza Fights For Freedom (2019)
Written by Abby Martin and Mike Prysner
Directed by Abby Martin

You can watch this documentary in its entirety here. It is age-restricted so I cannot embed it, sadly.

One of the talking points of the pro-occupation crowd is to talk incessantly about 7 October 2023. If you respond by bringing up other relevant dates and incidents that establish a slow-rolling genocide, the counterargument is that they are talking about “right now,” not the “ancient past.” When asked for their justifications of why the occupying force should have any claim in Palestine, they will respond with “evidence” from a dubious religious text by practitioners of the religion this occupying force has appropriated that this is their homeland circa two millennia earlier.

Movie Review – It Must Be Heaven

It Must Be Heaven (2019)
Written and directed by Elia Suleiman

Like most artists, Elia Suleiman has specific elements he wants to continually examine, looking at them from different angles and revisiting images from his past to see if time has changed their meaning. After watching four films from Suleiman, I see how some critics would say he keeps making the same movie to an extent. These movies will always have Suleiman playing some version of himself. The persona he presents will be a nearly silent, deadpan one. The story will be told in vignettes that work in isolation but can also be viewed collectively to make something more significant. Suleiman is playing the Holy Fool and, through that lens, can observe the world in ways the rest of us cannot.

Movie Review – Omar

Omar (2013)
Written and directed by Hany Abu-Assad

I won’t say any more on this, but the ending of Omar is one of the most satisfying conclusions I have ever seen in a film, yet it still leaves a bittersweet taste in your mouth. This is filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad’s first writer/director gig. He’d previously directed but co-written with one or more people. While not having seen that much of his work, the breakout film Paradise Now has always resonated with me. I was curious to see what story he had to tell after such an intense character-focused narrative. Once again, we get another narrative about a young Palestinian man caught in difficult circumstances, his friendships being challenged, and a moment hurtling toward him where he must make a decision that will shape the rest of his life going forward.

Movie Review – 5 Broken Cameras

5 Broken Cameras (2012)
Written by Guy Davidi
Directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi

Individualism is undoubtedly the mindset in which all Western thought appears to emerge. I’m a big believer that we’re actually a collectivist species forced into these systems, which explains the astronomical rate of people with mental illness worsening. Mental illness occurs regardless of what systems we are under, but it is hugely aggravated under ones that tell sick people they must care for themselves. This way of thinking has led to a common refrain among reactionaries that if individuals simply complied with the demands of hierarchies of power, they would not be harmed. This, of course, ignores that these same hierarchies perpetuate harm as part of their very nature. We are asking people to endure increasing levels of harm so we don’t have to wrestle with our role in these systems, and that will never lead to a solution.

Movie Review – The Time That Remains

The Time That Remains (2009)
Written and directed by Elia Suleiman

Filmmaker Elia Suleiman tells all his stories through an autobiographical lens. I imagine it can feel overwhelming to tell the story of the Palestinians when you are one of them, especially when multiple experiences are happening at once within the occupied territory. You have the Palestinians of Gaza, the Palestinians of the West Bank, and those who live outside these two yet are still not free. Suleiman presents himself and many of his characters in his work as cold & distant from what is happening. To be in the torment your people have endured for decades just isn’t something that a person can be expected to walk away from with their sanity intact. The camera is another distancing tool and film tropes, too. They allow a person to examine something painful without needing to be directly inside of that pain.

Movie Review – Salt of This Sea

Salt of This Sea (2008)
Written and directed by Annemarie Jacir

One aspect of the Palestinian struggle that I realize I can only intellectually connect with is the connection even those in the diaspora have to the land of Palestine. I can’t say I’ve ever felt a meaningful connection to any place I’ve lived that I couldn’t sever when leaving. I also don’t feel much of a connection to my murky ancestry going back to Ireland, as being a white person in the States means any semblance of cultural roots I have were forfeit for the glorious privilege of strip malls and fast food. So, my understanding of the themes in this film was less emotional than I might have liked, but I get why. This is an experience I just cannot have, but that doesn’t mean I cannot learn something from listening.

Movie Review – Paradise Now

Paradise Now (2005)
Written by Hany Abu-Assad, Bero Beyer, and Pierre Hodgson
Directed by Hany Abu-Assad

It was once said that the suicide bomber was the “poor man’s atomic bomb.” There’s an immediate revulsion many of us in the West have when we see stories or hear about suicide bombings. I think it’s the intimacy of the act. Rarely do you see talking heads on the news react so strongly to stories of drone bombings or Western airstrikes. The suicide bomb seems to be an outgrowth of the act of self-immolation, the act of setting oneself on fire as a form of protest. The argument against suicide bombings has been that they kill many innocent bystanders. I would refer again to the formalized attacks on civilian populations by the West that are not held to this same standard. Paradise Now is the story of a suicide bomber and seeks to understand why a person would feel as if they have no other options to be heard.

Movie Review – Divine Intervention

Divine Intervention (2002)
Written and directed by Elia Suleiman

Santa Claus runs across a hill near Nazareth in a panic. He’s pursued by a gang of knife-wielding youths. He runs out of steam. They catch up with him. Everything moves so quickly. Santa looks down. The hilt of the knife extends from his chest. He stumbles back. Collapses. That is how Elia Suleiman begins Divine Intervention, another of his vignette comedies. Is this a heavy metaphor about Western culture being driven out by the Palestinian youth, a shocking, dark comedic scene to grab the audience’s attention, or both? My answer is yes.

Movie Review – Chronicle of a Disappearance

Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996)
Written and directed by Elia Suleiman

I don’t have a large platform, though it has grown significantly in the last year. I don’t assume that many eyes see what I do here. However, I feel an obligation to do something regarding the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, something that began in 1948. Because I focus on media, I thought a film series spotlighting Palestinian cinema might do some good. At minimum, it would elevate some pieces of art that deserve to be seen. In early 2020, when the Trump administration assassinated Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani, I saw a rise in the old Islamophobia I remembered seeing in my college days. In response, I did a series spotlighting Iranian films. I’m glad I did. I think Iranian filmmakers have been doing incredible work for a long time. With the vitriol and rancor towards Palestinians eclipsing anything I saw in 2020, I decided to do this.