Divine Intervention (2002)
Country: FR/GER/MOR/NL/US
Technical: col 93m
Director: Elia Suleiman
Cast: Elia Suleiman, Manal Khader, Nayef Fahoum Daher
Synopsis:
A portrait of the situation in Palestine through a series of incidents betraying apparently motiveless petty-mindedness and antagonism. The filmmaker looks on expressionless, occasionally consulting obscure post-its on the wall of his father's(?) house and obsessively revisiting a position of vigil overlooking a Jerusalem checkpoint, together with or independently of his 'superheroine' girlfriend.
Review:
Divine intervention is what is desperately needed in this part of the world, where Santa Claus gets knifed by children and citizens deposit their rubbish in the neighbour's garden. It is provided once or twice by the heroine, who either strides, knock'em dead style, past the representatives of conflict, or does battle with them in the shape of a ninja warrior. But at the end of this largely disconnected montage of the misanthropic and surreally comic Suleiman and his mother are left watching a pressure cooker as its top spins inexorably towards some supposedly imminent eruption. Visually arresting and an astonishing achievement in the current climate, the film is a formal exercise in exposing the very real absurdities that characterize life in the Middle East.
Country: FR/GER/MOR/NL/US
Technical: col 93m
Director: Elia Suleiman
Cast: Elia Suleiman, Manal Khader, Nayef Fahoum Daher
Synopsis:
A portrait of the situation in Palestine through a series of incidents betraying apparently motiveless petty-mindedness and antagonism. The filmmaker looks on expressionless, occasionally consulting obscure post-its on the wall of his father's(?) house and obsessively revisiting a position of vigil overlooking a Jerusalem checkpoint, together with or independently of his 'superheroine' girlfriend.
Review:
Divine intervention is what is desperately needed in this part of the world, where Santa Claus gets knifed by children and citizens deposit their rubbish in the neighbour's garden. It is provided once or twice by the heroine, who either strides, knock'em dead style, past the representatives of conflict, or does battle with them in the shape of a ninja warrior. But at the end of this largely disconnected montage of the misanthropic and surreally comic Suleiman and his mother are left watching a pressure cooker as its top spins inexorably towards some supposedly imminent eruption. Visually arresting and an astonishing achievement in the current climate, the film is a formal exercise in exposing the very real absurdities that characterize life in the Middle East.
Country: FR/GER/MOR/NL/US
Technical: col 93m
Director: Elia Suleiman
Cast: Elia Suleiman, Manal Khader, Nayef Fahoum Daher
Synopsis:
A portrait of the situation in Palestine through a series of incidents betraying apparently motiveless petty-mindedness and antagonism. The filmmaker looks on expressionless, occasionally consulting obscure post-its on the wall of his father's(?) house and obsessively revisiting a position of vigil overlooking a Jerusalem checkpoint, together with or independently of his 'superheroine' girlfriend.
Review:
Divine intervention is what is desperately needed in this part of the world, where Santa Claus gets knifed by children and citizens deposit their rubbish in the neighbour's garden. It is provided once or twice by the heroine, who either strides, knock'em dead style, past the representatives of conflict, or does battle with them in the shape of a ninja warrior. But at the end of this largely disconnected montage of the misanthropic and surreally comic Suleiman and his mother are left watching a pressure cooker as its top spins inexorably towards some supposedly imminent eruption. Visually arresting and an astonishing achievement in the current climate, the film is a formal exercise in exposing the very real absurdities that characterize life in the Middle East.