Divine Intervention: Humor as Resistance

This week, I wanted to build from the last post on Chronicle of a Disappearance to discuss another Elia Suleiman film: Divine Intervention.

Released in 2002, Divine Intervention was Palestine's official entry for the Academy Awards. However, the film was rejected because the Oscars only consider films from countries recognized as a nation by the United Nations, which Palestine was not. This would later be contradicted when Hany Abu-Assad's film Paradise Now is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006.

Much like Chronicle of a Disappearance, Divine Intervention is composed of a series of short vignettes of the everyday life of Palestinians. It is a surreal black comedy that frequently switches between fantasy and reality.

Scenes are as simple as a long take of a man opening his mail in the morning, to an elaborate sequence involving a red balloon with Yasser Arafat's face on it inexplicably inflating and floating across the border.

Suleiman continuously pulls his audience in many directions, and the rapid shifts in tone and style are often humorous, but in a strange and nonsensical way.

In the films climax, a group of Israeli soldiers are doing target practice with cardboard cutouts of Arab woman. After shooting two rounds in a choreographed dance routine, one of the cutouts comes alive. This "Arab ninja" repels bullets, flings stones at rapid speed, and conjures up a shield in the shape of Israel and Palestinian territories, which she uses to destroy a helicopter after taking out the entire group of soldiers.

This represents the daydream quality of Divine Intervention. Suleiman's forays into the surreal are moments of wishful thinking, such as the "Arab ninja" who single handily takes down soldiers without any guns or sophisticated weaponry. Suleiman captures the spirit of Palestinian resistance to occupation through fantasy and surrealism.

This leads to the greater question of cinematic resistance in an occupied region. Suleiman is a Palestinian-Israeli and his films are made in both Israel and Palestine. So would his film be considered part of Israeli cinema or Palestinian cinema? Arguments can be made for both, however, it is generally accepted that Divine Intervention is clearly a work of Palestinian cinema because of its subject-matter, director, and actors (most of whom are non-professional and are friends or family of Suleiman).

For me, what makes Divine Intervention a Palestinian film is its cinematic style. Suleiman combines low-budget techniques, such as long-takes and amateur actors, with special effects to create his absurdist vision of reality. There are infinite interpretations of each of the vignette's possible political or social meaning, but the bottom line is that Suleiman is trying to make us laugh.

In an interview, Suleiman says that his inspiration for his films are small things that make him laugh. He takes these simple things, such as a story of his lead actress (Manal Khader) ignoring the commands of Israeli soldiers and just walking past a checkpoint to get into Jerusalem for a lunch date, and amplifies them to the status of the impossible. She reenacts this story in the film , but Suleiman pushes reality into fantasy, and with a glance from her piercing eyes, the soldiers' watch tower topples as she struts past.

The humor in this scene is understated and dark. There is no dialogue, no jokes, and no physical humor. The humor exists in the very notion of a Palestinian woman developing unseen powers to take down a checkpoint. In a country where being Palestinian is a disadvantage and some would say relegates a person to the status of second-class citizen, Suleiman's retelling of Manal's story is painfully wishful.

But Suleiman does this not just to tease Palestinians or indulge escapism. The comedic tone and surrealism of Divine Intervention make it a more digestible reading of the Palestinian situation in Israel and seemingly less bold or agitating. However, Suleiman never loses sight of the social and political issues that shape Palestinian lifestyles and his stories are rooted in this reality. Thus, it is through humor that Suleiman appeals to human emotion to tell stories and give insight into the Palestinian situation.

Divine Intervention theatrical trailer:

Photo Caption: Director Elia Suleiman holds a red balloon with Yasser Arafat's face in Divine Intervention.

Chronicle of a Disappearance: Avante-Garde Palestine

So far, the films I have been discussing are, more or less, part of popular cinema. Some, such as Rana's Wedding, exhibit strong elements of art-cinema, though it still follows a traditional narrative format. In contrast, Elia Suleiman's first feature film, Chronicle of Disappearance (1996), is experimental and abstract in its representation of daily life in Nazareth.

Suleiman directs and stars in this non-narrative examination of a man (Suleiman as himself) who returns to Nazareth after a self-imposed exile in New York. The film is on a quest to discover what it is like to be Palestinian.

The film is segmented into three parts, composed of vignettes of everyday life. Some stories are decidedly incongruous and abstract, while others are more straight-forward in their message. It is hard to classify Chronicle of a Disappearance, as it transcends any notions of genre or plot. It is part fiction and part autobiographical, blending truth and fantasy in hope of uncovering meaning.

The camera rarely moves throughout the film, which is composed mostly of long takes. The audience gets a medium or long shot perspective of any given scene and only sees it from one vantage point; the film is virtually devoid of close-ups. This distances the audience from what takes place on screen and creates a sense of voyeurism.

Some critics have described it as a black comedy because of its nihilistic tone set amongst humorous short tales. I would agree with this label and add that it is a minimalist film in its visual style and cinematography and a psychological drama in its content. The film is best approached by trying to analyze and decipher its parts first, and then synthesizing them to uncover Suleiman's overall message, if there is one at all.

Each scene in Chronicle of a Disappearance is richly symbolic, contributing to the film's absurdity. For example, a wooden camel figurine falls down in a Palestinian-owned souvenir shop in Nazareth. The store owner keeps trying to set it back upright, only for the camel to fall down repeatedly. He leaves for a moment and returns with some tape to prop up the camel, though after he walks out of the frame again, it falls down once more and the scene is over.

This scene can be correctly interpreted for simply what it is--merely a moment in the banal existence of a shop owner who never gets any customers--or it can be read through a metaphorical lens. The camel falling down is a problem for the shop owner that keeps occurring again and again, a metaphor for the problems facing Palestinians generation after generation. By trying to use tape to prop up the camel, the shop owner is using what he thinks is a quick and clever solution for his problem. However, the audience sees the camel fall down again, proving that the problem lies in the camel itself and needs more than a "band-aid" fix.

The film was made following the signing of the Oslo Accords, an agreement signed by Israel and the PLO in 1993 that established the Palestinian Authority, but left out many key issues in the conflict to be addressed at a later time (for more information on the Oslo Accords click here). In light of this historical context, the camel scene can be read as a criticism of the superficiality of the Oslo Accords and its inability to address many of the long-standing issues concerning Palestine.

Of course there is nothing explicit in the camel scene to suggest this is the correct reading, which is one of the more frustrating aspects of Chronicle of a Disappearance. Audiences watch a film expecting to gain some sort of meaning and enlightenment by the end of it, but with Chronicles of a Disappearance, Suleiman betrays this long-standing agreement between film and spectator, and we feel just as lost and unsatisfied by the end of the film as we did when it first began.

Perhaps this was an attempt to reflect the loss and disappointment of the Palestinian people. On the other hand, it could be a comment on the futility of defining Palestinians, or maybe simply the futility of life as a Palestinian.

Suleiman's experimental style is appropriate when applied to his subject-matter: the absurdity and nihilism of Palestinian reality. He forgoes traditional film techniques and creates a cinematic grammar unique to Palestine, which he continues in his next feature film, Divine Intervention, released in 2002.

Without a doubt, Suleiman is the shining example of the avante-garde operating in the Middle East.


Photo Courtesy of Arab Film Distribution

Days and Nights: An Example of Classic Egypt

My last post examined a recent Egyptian film filled with stories about various problems affecting contemporary Egypt. To contrast, I am providing some analysis on an older film, the 1955 film by Henry Barakat Days and Nights (Ayyam w layali) starring the legendary Abdel Halim Hafez.


Days and Nights follows a very standard formula for 1950s Egyptian romantic melodramas. A young man falls in love with a beautiful girl, but something about him prevents him from being with her. In this film, it is because he takes the blame for an accident caused by his step brother's drunk driving.

Family, responsibility, dignity, and the dangers of drinking are all prominent themes of the film, which does nothing to hide its moral messages. The dialogue is often very pointed, sometimes even contrived, in communicating the "right" point of view.

In the film, Yehia (Hafez) is a university student whose mother divorced his father because he was a drunk. She remarries to a single father, and then realizes her new husband does not treat her two sons equally, favoring his son over Yehia.

Yehia spots the gorgeous Samia (actress Iman) and the two fall in love. However, Yehia's brother hits and kills a man while driving drunk but refuses to turn himself in, leaving Yehia's best friend to be wrongly accused of the crime. Yehia pleads with his stepfather to do the right thing and tell his brother to confess, but his stepfather demands Yehia stay quiet to repay him for raising him.

Frustrated with the injustices, Yehia seeks out his biological father for advice. Yehia proceeds to confess to the hit-and-run, landing himself in court and causing Samia's mother to forbid her from seeing him. At the last minute, Yehia's mother turns in her stepson and takes back her ex-husband, restoring her family unit.

The story preaches honesty, taking responsibility for one's actions, and respecting family as the basic social unit. However, this is not what the film is "about." Ultimately, it is a romance-musical designed to be a box-office hit with mass appeal. The insertion of so many moral messages is reflexive of cinematic trends of the time. Most classic Egyptian films--like many Hollywood films of the time--reinforced the status quo in society.

With that said, Days and Nights is most notable for its incredible soundtrack, featuring several of Hafez's best songs, such as the timeless ballad "Ana Lak Ala tool." However, this is not to say that it does not push boundaries. The film opens with a birth scene, portraying Yehia's mother laying in bed after giving birth, something that may have been problematic in Hollywood at the time.

In terms of aesthetics, Days and Nights is a perfect example of the majority of classic Egyptian cinema. The film uses a style generally known as Classic Hollywood Realism, which entails narrative-oriented editing with predominantly medium shots. There is no experimental or montage editing and one could say the film "plays it safe" stylistically.

One of the biggest criticisms surrounding popular Egyptian film in the 1950s is that it was essentially trying to copy Hollywood style to recreate its success in Egypt rather than form a unique cinema for itself. I would like to argue against this statement and claim that the themes and genres popular in 1950s Egypt were in fact a reflection of the cultural climate.

The Yacoubian Building: The Modernist Paradox in Egypt

Egypt is, without a doubt, the most prolific Arab nation in terms of film production. The old Egyptian classic melodramas and musicals are recognized and appreciated throughout the Middle East. Today, Egyptian films are increasingly focused on a number of social and political issues. However, heavy censorship in Egypt is a major obstacle, though filmmakers are finding ways to slowly overcome boundaries.

The 2006 film The Yacoubian Building (Omaret yakobean) by Marwan Hamed and starring Egyptian legend Adel Imam stands out as a breakthrough in censorship and conservative ideals. The film broke box office records in Egypt and was the nation's official entry for the Academy Awards.

Based on a bestselling novel by Alaa Al Aswany with the same name set in 1990, The Yacoubian Building tells the stories of the tenants of the film's namesake and uses the building, an actual building in Cairo, as a metaphor for modern Egypt. The characters face a slew of social problems--poverty, religious radicalism, sexual harrasment, aging, homesexuality, adultry, abortion, drugs, political corruption, police brutality--and each of their morals is put to the test, and most of them fail.

The depiction of modern Egypt is scathing, to say the least. Very little redemption or hope for Egypt's future is presented.

The film tackles so many issues that it would be futile to attempt to analyze all of them here in this blog. I will most likely return to this film in the future to analyze more specific themes, but this entry will focus on a prevailing theme that I believe is exemplified by each of the characters' personal story: the fear that social progress will ruin tradition and humanity. This is also known as the modernist paradox.

The tenants of the Yacoubian Building all want change. Soad (Somaya Al Khashab) lives with her mother and siblings in a shanty on the roof of the building. She wants to make more money, but cannot hold a job because she rejects the sexual advances of her bosses to maintain her honor. Her mother tells her a woman can learn to tolerate a certain amount of harassment and still keep her dignity and make money. This story represents Egypt as a place where people must forgo their morality in order to make money and survive.

Soad clings to her beliefs in the face of a society that has moved far past her notions of honor. She is at odds with the world around her. At one point, she gives in to her boss and allows him to dry hump her in a back room. Everyone else is unbothered by this, but Soad is crushed and represents a victim of modernity. In this case, the modernism is an immoral and evil thing.

Zaki Al Dessouki (Adel Imam) is the Yacoubian Building's oldest tenant and an heir to a Pasha. In one scene, he drunkenly proclaims to Soad that Cairo had gone to the dogs, that it was once a city greater than Paris but was now full of buildings that were "slums on the top and deformed in the basement," a reference to the poor people that lived on the roof and the morally empty rich tenants inside. Zaki demands a return to the old glory of Egypt, a proclamation that is fitting to be made by one of the greatest actors in Egyptian cinema.

Despite their drastic age diffrence, Zaki and Soad marry at the end of the film, serving as the film's only ray of hope. The two represent a merging of old and new, rich and poor, Muslim and Coptic. The audience is left to believe that through their marriage, Zaki and Soad are preserving the dream of transforming Cairo, since every other subplot ends tragically.

The Yacoubian Building is an attempt at a sweeping portrayal of contemporary Egypt that is a landmark in terms of breaking boundaries in cinema, but it also suffers from trying to cram too much into one film.

Each of the subplots is just as important as the next, and depth and insight into the issues is sacrificed to preserve screen time. Nonetheless, this is a crucial film to see to get a more honest and humanist representation of Egypt and an introduction to the social perceptions of a variety of issues.

Photo Caption: Somaya al Khashab and Adel Imam dance together in The Yacoubian Building.

The Simpsons: Animated Muslims in "Mypods and Boomsticks"

While this is primarily a film blog, I feel that there are some TV-related issues that are worth discussing.

In a November 30, 2008 episode of the hit show The Simpsons entitled "Mypods and Boomsticks, " the Simpson family get new neighbors, who happen to be Muslim. While Bart befriends the son, Bashir, and Homer gets suspicious of the family and invites them over for dinner to investigate.

In typical Homer Simpson fashion, he insults the family, calling Allah "Oliver" and the Quaran the "Carona," and accuses them of being anti-American. Homer later goes to their house to apologize and discovers what he thinks is a plot to blow up Springfield mall. Turns out the father is a demolition expert overseeing a controlled demolition.

While this episode does not stand out in terms of comedy, the jokes being less inspired than other episodes, the representation of Muslim characters as normal, everyday Americans is refreshing. Even the mother of the family is animated wearing a veil.

The overall moral lesson of learning to understand and accept thy neighbor is somewhat forced and contrived. Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see such a popular show tackle the issue of Islamophobia. The use of comedy underscores the severity of the problem, but makes it more accessible. Muslims on The Simpsons is just a small example of how Arabs and Muslims are slowly permeating all areas of the entertainment industry.

The new kid, Bashir, faces school bullies:


Homer investigates Jack Bauer stlyle:


Videos Courtesy: http://www.hulu.com/

"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