Rana's Wedding: Rana as an allegory for Palestine

Hany Abu-Assad's second film, Rana's Wedding (Al qods fee yom akhar), has been described by some as a moving story about life under occupation, finding true love despite violence and the intertwining of personal and political issues. While this description is valid, I feel it only begins to scratch the surface of this layered story.

Released in 2002, Rana's Wedding is rich with symbolism. But the most important of them is Rana herself as an allegory for Palestine. This is the topic I will be focusing on in this post. There are many other interesting themes and issues regarding style in Rana's Wedding, so I will be doing two posts on this film.


The story takes place in a day and follows Rana (Clara Khoury) as she searches for her boyfriend, Khalil (Khalifa Natour), and the two rush to get married before her father leaves for Egypt later that day. On her journey, Rana must deal with roadblocks, Israeli soldiers, a funeral procession, bureaucratic red tape, and cultural traditions.

Traveling through Jerusalem is itself a huge task, thanks to the numerous roadblocks in the city. At one location, Rana passes by a conflict between Israeli soldiers and young boys who are throwing rocks at them. The boys, none older than 13 or 14, are poorly dressed and have only small stones as weapons. The soldiers are adults armed with guns, which they use against the boys and injure one. This instance is symbolic of Palestine's weakness in the face of the well-equipped and well-funded Israeli Defense Force. Rana, as the state of Palestine, can only look on, and though she tries to take part in the fight by throwing a stone, she is not prepared to fully come to the people's defense. This represents the Palestinian governments lack of power and inefficiency in preventing civilian death.

Later in the story, in the film's most poignant scene, a funeral procession walks past Rana carrying the body of a person we assume was killed from violence related to the occupation. The procession is interrupted by sounds of gun shots and Rana frantically locks herself in a car. Inside, she writhes in anxiety and stares directly into the camera, pleading with it and screaming in anger, though her screams are silent, muffled by the car. The camera has now become a character and moves around the car, Rana always following it as if it were a person.

Rana is Palestine, suffering in a vacuum. She is there to be watched, like an animal in a cage, and the camera indulges in her pain, turning it into entertainment for us as the audience. Abu-Assad is saying here that Palestine is suffering in front of the whole world, who watches with an occasional interest, though they never truly hear the cries of the Palestinians.

Rana looking into the camera lens is a technique known as direct address where a film becomes aware of itself and breaks the fourth wall, a technique often associated with the French New Wave. This is one of two instances of direct address in Rana's Wedding. These instances are temporary deviations from the narrative and drastically stand out from the rest of the film. This indicates that Abu-Assad wanted these scenes to be remembered, and he was most likely trying to convey an important message through them.

In the second instance of direct address, Khalil jokes around in front of a security camera, which the audience has assumed the point of view of, and he mimes out a fight where he is repeatedly punched, yet he walks away defiantly in the end. Khalil is mocking the absurdity of the security camera and his pantomime is meant to insult the camera, and thus insult Israel's watchful eye.

Finally, as Rana is preparing for her hastily organized wedding, she and her friend, Mary, gaze outside a window as an Israeli demolition crew tears down a house. Rana remarks that they are destroying a home on the day she wants to build one. Facing the camera, Mary tells her not to worry, because the house will be rebuilt the next day.

This line is a remark on the resilience of Palestine. Not only has there been a great amount of physical destruction in Palestine, but the people themselves have had their spirit crushed and hope sometimes feels very impossible under occupation. Mary is saying here that no damage Israel inflicts is permanent and the Rana's future, Palestine's future, can always be rebuilt.

Rana is not simply a Palestinian, but she is all of Palestine. Rana's Wedding reminds me of the German film The Marriage of Maria Braun Rainier Fassbinder. Maria's aggressive sexuality and lust for power reflect Germany's rise and fall before, during and after World War II. Both these films are two examples of a woman as the nation, a common symbol that has appeared throughout film, literature and theater.

Photo Courtesy: www.ranaswedding.com

Caramel: Social Issues and Female Melodrama

The first film I will attempt to deconstruct is Nadine Labaki's 2007 film Caramel (Sukkar banat).

This film enjoyed significant success for a very limited distribution in the United States and was Lebanon's official entry into the foreign film category of the Academy Awards. This success in the West is due in part to its positive depiction of Arab women and themes of female empowerment. Labaki's strong-willed and intelligent characters challenge Western stereotypes of the oppressed and restricted Arab woman. Thus, Caramel is very much a "West-friendly" film.

Caramel tells the story of five Lebanese women who are connected by a beauty salon, the only place they feel comfortable enough to discuss and air out their problems and grievances. Layale (Labaki) is the salon owner who is stuck in a dead-end affair with a married man. Her coworker Nisrine (Yasmine Al Masri) is about to marry a Muslim man and chooses to undergo hymen reconstruction surgery to hide the fact that she is not a virgin. Rima (Joanna Moukarzel) also works at the salon and is coming to terms with her attraction to women. Salon frequenter Jamal (Gisele Aouad) tries to fight aging and menopause as she attempts to make a career as an actress after her divorce. And finally there is Rose (Siham Hiddad), an older woman who finds love for the first time in her life but sacrifices it all to take care of her mentally unstable older sister.

In terms of genre, Caramel falls into the category of melodrama. More specifically, it is a female melodrama and social issues film. In Hollywood, the social issue film, which reached its height in the 1950s, is most often hybridized with other genres. For example, the film Juno deals with the social issue of teen pregnancy, but it is also a comedy. Caramel seems to be following this pattern by combining a story of everyday people with everyday problems that stem from cultural issues of tradition, inter-religious marriage and public decency. Notably absent is any reference to politics or violence, the two things an average audience may expect to find in Arab movies.

Also interesting about Caramel is its unique style. Labaki employs a lot of very expressive techniques, seen in her use of melodramatic music, bright color schemes and dramatic visual composition. At the same time, Caramel has elements of cinema-verite such as the "hand-held" camera feel and documentary style of Jamal's audition for a commercial. Furthermore, the film is shot almost entirely on location and employs mostly non-professional actors, techniques most often associated with neo-realism and third world cinema.

While the style of Caramel is difficult to categorize, there is no questioning the affect the film has on audiences. Dialogue in the film is very limited, so most of the story is told through action and subtle facial expressions. Jamal sits in a bathroom stall pouring nail polish on a maxi pad, a seemingly pointless and nonsensical action, but from the carefulness with which she arranges the pad in the trash can and the pained look on her face during her audition, the audience puts the pieces together and realizes she is faking her period so no one will know she is menopausal. This desperate and pathetic attempt to hide her age can speak to viewers of all ages who have ever felt inadequate in comparison to someone younger, older, prettier, smarter or faster.

Labaki's characters are dealing with organic human problems that transcend borders, race and religion. However, Lebanon is itself an important character. The religion of culture of Beirut comes alive in the film, and indeed at one point, a religious processional honoring the Virgin Mary interrupts life in the salon as the priest comes in to bless the business.

Caramel is a must-see for its stereotype-shattering portrayal of Lebanese women, experimental style and cultural study of contemporary Lebanon.

Here is the trailer for Caramel:



Photo Courtesy: Ya Libnan
Photo Caption: L to R Gisele Aouad, Yasmine Al Msri, Joanna Moukarzel and Nadine Labaki in the film Caramel.

Welcome! (My first post)

Hello everyone. Welcome to The Arabic Film Blog, a destination for in-depth and critical analysis of Arabic language films from the Middle East, Arabs and Arab-Americans in Hollywood, the depiction of Arabs in American film, and more.

This blog is a first attempt for me. My vision is to share my opinion and observations of trends, themes, and techniques in Arab film making along with news and events concerning Arabs in Hollywood. My hope is to help define Arab film making and figure out where it fits in global cinema.

At the moment, there are few, if any, film scholars who are doing any serious research into Middle Eastern cinema, despite the fact that many Arab nations have seen extensive growth in cinema production thanks to more available resources and a greater interest in the art.

While I will try and include as many relevant news stories as possible, this is by no means a news source but rather a place to find meaning and analysis behind current events in Arab film and how these things affect Arab cinema.

I can make no promises where this blog will go: it is many ways an experiment for me. But I hope you will join me in my quest to discover and learn about Arab cinema.