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.

"Rana's Wedding" Part 2: Rana the Rebel

After spending time discussing Rana as an allegory for Palestine, I would like to address a couple other issues in Rana's Wedding.

The film is in many ways a social issue film. Its presentation of marriage traditions in Jerusalem are critical, and in some cases, presented in a humorous light.

Part of Rana's problem is that her father left her with two choices: leave to Egypt or stay behind and marry one of the men on a pre-approved list of potential husbands. She was left with almost no say in the matter. Of course, Rana defies her father and chooses the man she wants.

In a scene where the women are sitting in the living room singing before the ceremony, one older lady remarks that she hopes it is all over soon since what is going on is disgraceful. This demonstrates how Rana is defying custom and traditions.

In her actual wedding, Rana is more of a bystander as her husband-to-be and her father shake hands to make the marriage official. By marrying the man she loves, though, Rana reclaimed control over her life and at one point goes to visit one of the men on her father's list out of curiosity, and laughs with a childish playfulness. She is laughing in the face of the things that tried to oppress her.

Rana's Wedding is a remarkably layered film that demonstrates Hany Abu-Assad's emerging style as a director. I highly recommend it as a spectacular example of a art cinema-popular cinema hybrid in the Middle East.

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