Paradise Now Part 2: Self-Reflexivity

In my last post on Paradise Now, I argued that Abu-Assad had given a voice to a previously silent character, the terrorist. The story comments in many ways on the current political crisis in the Middle East, but the film is also a self-reflexive work that comments on cinema and media as they operates in the Middle East.

The most indicative scene is where Said and Suha discuss cinema over tea at her home. Suha asks Said if he likes movies and he responds by saying that Nablus does not have a movie theater, and the only theater he has ever been to was one he help set on fire. This dialogue helps establish two important points about the perception of cinema in the West Bank.

First, cinema is not accessible to Palestinians due to lack of infrastructure. Said does mention that movies are available on tape in Nablus, but the experience of watching a film in a theater is relatively foreign to him. Cinema is, perhaps, a foreign art form to Palestine. By setting a movie theater on fire, Said destroys not just a building but a symbol of something foreign and imperialistic. It is possible to deduce that Said's destruction of the theater reflects a larger rejection by the Palestinian people of cinema as a whole.

Nonetheless, media does exist in Nablus. Two scenes in the film take place at a video store that rents out tapes of suicide bombers' final messages and the confessions of collaborators before they are killed. In this way, media has become incorporated with the conflict. Suha is shocked and disgusted by these video rentals, though she does not know that Said himself had recorded his own video hours before.

The idea of taping these messages is to make them immortal, so that the stories of the terrorists and collaborators will live on. The videos also help to distribute the messages to a large audience. These two points are also goals for cinema as a whole: to make stories eternal and to distribute them to a mass audience. But in this case, videos are manipulated for political purposes and exploitation. This is not to say that certain cinemas, such as Hollywood, do not have political agendas or exploit for a profit. In fact, many theorists would say all Hollywood films have some form of agenda, and mainstream films have profited from exploiting people and situations for as long as cinema has existed. The only difference is that the video rental store is straightforward in its purpose and uses all real people. The videos achieve the same end as cinema but without the seductive illusion created from cinema magic.

Going back to Said and Suha's initial conversation, there comes a point where Said is also unable to name a genre of film he enjoys. He asks Suha if a "boring" genre exists, since that is what his life is like. Said feels that no current genre of film relates to his life or is fit to tell his story. Indeed, perhaps no genre or style of cinema in existence is suited to tell the Palestinian narrative and become part of the developing Palestinian cinema.

While Abu-Assad may be reflecting on cinema's failure to attract or accurately portray Palestinians, he is himself attempting to construct a Palestinian cinematic identity. Paradise Now is painfully aware of its task at hand.

In the end, Said and Suha can come to no conclusion about Said's interest in film. She, being born and raised outside of the West Bank, is too removed from the situation in Palestine to understand his apathy towards cinema. Their conversation eventually escalates to a debate about how to fight the occupation and the two realize they do not see eye to eye, and arguing is futile.

In addition to its address of the Middle East conflict, Paradise Now meditates on the role, if any, of cinema and media in Palestine as it attempts to construct a Palestinian style to make cinema an effective art form in telling the Palestinian narrative.

Paradise Now: Voice for the Voiceless

No discussion of contemporary Arab cinema would be complete without analysis of Hany Abu-Assad's Golden Globe-winning and Academy Award-nominated film Paradise Now. This film represents a huge artistic and financial success for Arab cinema, and investigating the reasons why it attained such success reveals many great possibilities for the region. It was popular and grossed fairly well both within the Middle East and abroad, enjoying a long run in American theaters as well. It's success at film festivals and award shows helped put Middle Eastern cinema on the map and solidified it as a viable competitor in the global film market.

All of this success is especially shocking considering the film follows the point of view of two would-be suicide bombers--a perspective not typically shown and one that most audiences are reluctant to empathize with.

A film's protagonist is by nature someone for audiences to empathize and connect with. Without a relatable protagonist, a film cannot go very far. This has created a certain understanding with audiences so that before a film even begins, they know they are about to embark on a journey with the protagonist, and by the end of the film should feel more connected to the character. So for a terrorist to be given such powerful access to people's hearts is a bold and unexpected accomplishment.

But by taking this risk, Abu-Assad humanized a character that is often relegated to being portrayed as a loud, obnoxious, and unintelligent background character whose purpose is only to be "taken down" by the film's hero (Think the Libyan terrorists in Back to the Future, or Salim Abu Aziz in True Lies).

In comparison to past Hollywood terrorists, Khaled (Ali Suliman) and Said (Kais Nashif) in Paradise Now are a huge departure from the hegemonic stereotype. The two are childhood friends who, aside from their radicalism, lead very normal lives--or as normal as they can as Palestinians in the West Bank.

Khaled has trouble holding onto a job, Said fights with his younger brother, and their families are constantly looking for better and cheaper water filters. These are all seemingly trivial and mundane elements of everyday life, but Abu-Assad intentionally highlights these things to humanize his characters before introducing any indication of terrorism.

When the two men are finally approached for their mission, the focus of the film always remains on their personal struggle in going through with the attack. Islam is mentioned in the film as merely a fact of radicalism, not the source or motivation for it. Khaled and Said's family history and personal experiences are the things that have led them to violence.

While Abu-Assad was careful to portray terrorist activities in an accurate fashion, going so far as to have militants supervise a scene where the men record their farewell messages on video, this realism only contextualizes the characters. Paradise Now is a purely character-driven narrative that delves into the psyche of the two terrorists.

What emerges is desperation, confusion, and identity crisis. As Khaled says, they are dead if they stay alive or go through with the attack, indicating a severe desperation. The two seem to have lost a will to live but still have a will to resist, raising an interesting paradox in extremism.

To challenge these beliefs is the character of Suha (Lubna Azabal). She is a Palestinian born in Morrocco, educated in France and now returned to her parent's hometown. It is revealed that she is the daughter of a famous martyr, though she resents the glory her father received and takes a decidedly pro-peace and pro-diplomacy stance. In a memorable conversation with Khaled, Suha claims that there is no paradise; it exists only in their heads. In response, Khaled says that he would rather have paradise in his head than live in hell on Earth.

Abu-Assad uncovers the humanism behind radicalism in Palestine. There is no clear message in Paradise Now and I do not believe Abu-Assad is trying to preach to his audiences. Rather, he is educating them and giving a voice to the voiceless. Abu-Assad has complicated the Western stereotype of the uneducated and unkempt religious fanatic that has allowed Hollywood to vilify Arabs without any remorse.

Paradise Now trailer:


Photo Caption: Said (Kais Nashif) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) wait patiently to carry out a suicide bombing in Paradise Now.

A Man in Our House: Nationalism in Egyptian Cinema

I would like to look at another Henry Barakat (Days and Nights) movie, the 1961 film A Man in Our House (Fi Baitina Rajul) starring Omar Sharif. Like Days and Nights, A Man in Our House features a love story that is threatened by social and political elements beyond the lovers' control and ultimately reinforces traditional morals. However, A Man in Our House features a prominent political message concerning nationalism and patriotism and glorifies the Egyptian resistance to British colonialism, which ended in 1954.

Sharif is Ibrahim Hamdy, a young Egyptian university student and revolutionary who assassinates the prime minister as part of the struggle for freedom. Ibrahim hides from the police by taking refuge in the home of an apolitical fellow student, Mohie, and his family, who risk their own safety to help him.

The father of the family must battle with his obligation to keep his family safe and his sense of duty to his country to protect Ibrahim. He ultimately decides to take in Ibrahim, who quickly becomes another member of the family and an honored guest. A romance emerges between Mohie’s sister, Nawal, and Ibrahim, though Ibrahim tries to reject his feelings because he feels guilty for putting the family in danger.

Their plan is severely threatened when Mohie’s cousin, Abdel Hamid, accidentally discovers Ibrahim. He blackmails the family by threatening to expose their secret if they do not approve of his marriage proposal to the eldest sister, Samia.

Barakat weaves together the political and personal in his narrative. The family’s troubles are also the country’s problems and Sharif’s roles are both an uninvited guest and a wanted felon. This suggests that every Egyptian, even the most apolitical family, is a member of the struggle against colonialism.

Ibrahim's arrival to the house represents an interruption of daily life. The family is forced to examine their role in the revolution and decide what side they are going to take. He is the stranger entering the personal sphere and during his visit, he leaves an impression on everyone in the house.

The film also takes place during Ramadan, a fact that is often mentioned by the characters, and religious morals play a large part in the story. In Days and Nights, religion was almost non-existent. By making Islam so prevalent in A Man in Our House, Barakat makes his film a more uniquely Egyptian work. Themes of resistance and revolution are nothing new in cinema, so by inserting elements of everyday Egyptian life, such as religion, Barakat marks his film as a nationalist work.

A Man in Our House does not spend much time providing context for the events taking place. Indeed, the film was made in the middle of the Gamal Abdel Nasser years in Egypt and the Egyptian revolution was still fresh in people's memories. Barakat overtly embraces Nasser's theory of Arab nationalism and anti-colonialism and observes how these affect the average person trying to lead a normal life.

As also demonstrated in Day and Nights, subtlety is not Barakat's strong point. His middle-class-influenced moral and political messages are made very clear in the film's characters. The Egyptian police are seen abusing and mistreating political prisoners, nearly torturing Mohie to death. The fact that Abdel Hamid is uneducated, having dropped out of college, is repeatedly referenced when discussing his rudeness and immorality.

Essentially, Barakat suggests that a good person is also a nationalist. Resistence is the greatest virtue in the film, so much so that Ibrahim's romance with Nawal is sacrificed for freedom and Ibrahim becomes a martyr for his cause.

Just as Egypt fought to free itself from British colonials, Egyptian cinema struggled to create its own identity separate from Hollywood and other Western cinema. This decolonization of cinema is a problem that persists throughout the Middle East and is just as much an issue today as it was immediately following the Egyptian revolution. As stated in my last post, Palestinian director Elia Suleiman employs a blend of black humor and absurdity to reflect Palestinian reality and this style contributes to the development of a national cinema. This week, we see that Barakat calls upon religion and Egyptian middle-class morals to distinguish his cinema and represent basic elements of everyday life.

This question of national identity in cinema is one I will address more in the future. However, it is clear that the story of a physical resistance in A Man in our House creates the opportunity for artistic and psychological resistance to colonized art.