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MOVIE REVIEW
Paradise Now
Starring: Kais Nashef, Ali Suliman, Lubna Azabel
Written and directed by: Hany Abu-Assad
This film is nothing short of engulfing, emotional and horrific. In Paradise Now two Palestinian friends (Nashef and Suliman) are recruited for a suicide bombing mission in Tel Aviv. They are not fanatics. They do not seem like the scary terrorist "types" that one expects. They are sweet young men and through the filmmaker's unflinching lens: we empathize with the lives they lead, having grown up under siege and feeling a generational pull to "do something" about living in an occupied state.
As an American, I do not relate to nationalism as the Palestinians or Israelis do. I feel lucky-- post 9/11 to live in the United States. However, we are so in fear of terrorism and so focused on getting back at those who hurt us that we have lost many civil liberties and our leaders have displaced much of the focus from important domestic issues (healthcare, "women's issues"-morning after pill, abortion rights, environmental, economic) that it has started to become disconcerting.
Paradise Now shows a bit of the behind the scenes planning: getting haircuts, passports with fake identities and wearing suits to look like "settlers" (Israelis), having essentially a last supper, taping good-bye missives that will be shown on television and spending the nights with their families. Once on the mission, the two friends get separated which jeopardizes and changes the original plan. Re-thinking the validity of this martyrdom, will the two men go through with this?
Leading up to this undertaking, Said has become a bit smitten with Suha (Lubna Azabel), a strong, independent, willful woman. She is a peaceful activist/protester and does not condone violence and certainly not the type of activity in which her new friend has become involved. She has a much more liberal, Western-influenced ideology having been born in France and raised in Morocco. A cabbie does not even recognize her as a Palestinian woman. Her father was the revered leader Abu Assam. She speaks to Said the night before his mission (not knowing his intentions) and they end up in an argument of sorts where she insists that there are other ways, better ways to work for the Palestinian cause and to rebel against Israel. This may be the way many Palestinians feel. Not everyone is involved in terrorist organizations, after all. It is important to see this opinion expressed.
For the men, it is more difficult to separate themselves from what they were born into: a life in captivity. One in which it matters not if they are dead or alive. Of course, with the Muslim religion, there is the belief that suicide bombers will go directly to Paradise (thus the title). "What will happen after," one asks. "Two angels will pick you up." Paradise Now deftly explores the concept of martyrs, the reasons why someone would carry out a suicide mission and the suffocating lives of many Palestinians by not having their own country. It is done in a tasteful way. This is not a piece of political propaganda but something that has been made from the heart.
I will never understand Israel's unwillingness to reach some sort of compromise with the Palestinians. 15 years ago in college, as a political science major, I took a class called "The Arab-Israeli Conflict," which focused solely on this issue. I never thought that over a decade later there would still be not resolution. Paradise Now is thought-provoking, disturbing and painfully realistic.
Grade: ****
By Amy Steele
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