Paradise... Now?
The Palestinian movie Paradise Now is one of the five nominees in the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 78th Academy Awards. Directed by Hani Abu Asad, the movie tells the story of two mechanics from Nablus (Khalid and Sa'id) who are offered the chance to commit a suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv. The two men are observed in the preparation of the event as they experience a wide range of feelings, including fear, anger, resentment, frustration and second thoughts.
A humanized portrait of two aspiring terrorists is certainly an uneasy topic and has provoked mixed reactions in the Israeli audience. However, the Oscars organisers have denied Israeli pressures against Paradise Now, which recently won the Golden Globe Awards 2006 as Best Foreign Language Film.
The Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled on March 5.
The Italian movie Private (which had originally been chosen by Italy to compete in the Best Foreign Language Film section, and was subsequently rejected because the movie is mostly in English) has a similar approach, as it describes the Palestinian plight through the story of an educated, mildly secular, rather affluent Palestinian family whose house is occupied by the Israeli army for unspecified security reasons.
The soldiers settle down in the bedrooms on the upper floor, while the six members of the family are left with the option to either leave their house or being locked at night in the living room. In my opinion, this is a very powerful and well rendered metaphor of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Private (which was shot by Saverio Costanzo in quasi-Dogma style), however, is not intended to be a historically accurate reconstruction or a cheap tool of political propaganda. What is interesting in the movie is the psychological profile of the characters, their complexity, and how they discover and have to acknowledge the humanity of "the other".
The movie was awarded the Golden Leopard at the 57th Locarno International Film Festival.
A humanized portrait of two aspiring terrorists is certainly an uneasy topic and has provoked mixed reactions in the Israeli audience. However, the Oscars organisers have denied Israeli pressures against Paradise Now, which recently won the Golden Globe Awards 2006 as Best Foreign Language Film.
The Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled on March 5.
The Italian movie Private (which had originally been chosen by Italy to compete in the Best Foreign Language Film section, and was subsequently rejected because the movie is mostly in English) has a similar approach, as it describes the Palestinian plight through the story of an educated, mildly secular, rather affluent Palestinian family whose house is occupied by the Israeli army for unspecified security reasons.
The soldiers settle down in the bedrooms on the upper floor, while the six members of the family are left with the option to either leave their house or being locked at night in the living room. In my opinion, this is a very powerful and well rendered metaphor of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Private (which was shot by Saverio Costanzo in quasi-Dogma style), however, is not intended to be a historically accurate reconstruction or a cheap tool of political propaganda. What is interesting in the movie is the psychological profile of the characters, their complexity, and how they discover and have to acknowledge the humanity of "the other".
The movie was awarded the Golden Leopard at the 57th Locarno International Film Festival.
posted by Skylark at 1:09 AM
2 Comments:
Il tuo blog è decisamente anticonvenzionale.
Ti suggerisco un sito (magari già lo conosci). http://www.memritv.org/default.asp
Traduce in inglese spezzoni presi dalla tv arabe. C'è anche la famosa l'intervista fatta da Khaddam su l'omicidio Hariri, ed altre piccole chicce, come i cartoni animati iraniani.
belle le tue foto di beirut.
Domanda... il post con il riferimento alle leggi è davvero utile ?
Ciao
Max
Il MEMRI? Ne ho sempre sentito parlare piuttosto male, generalmente come di un'organizzazione di orientamento sionista e neo-con, specializzata nel trasformare una presa di posizione anti-israeliana in una dichiarazione di antisemitismo.
Per ciò che ho potuto finora vedere sul sito, per la cui segnalazione desidero comunque ringraziarti, rilevo una certa disinvoltura nell'ideazione dei titoli, che, in alcuni casi, rappresentano una forzatura del testo trascritto.
Quello che non mi è chiaro è se a monte di questa operazione vi sia il genuino desiderio di stigmatizzare una serie di dichiarazioni francamente riprovevoli o piuttosto il tentativo di liquidare qualsiasi voce critica proveniente dal Medio Oriente accomunandola, sempre e comunque, agli episodi più discutibili di un discorso politico e culturale sempre più radicalizzato.
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