in the book blog we have talked quite a bit about the fact that it is hard for fictions about 9.11 to free themselves from the overwhelming symbolism of that day. one would imagine that films about the middle east must deal with this problem constantly. in a radio interview from the extras, director amos gitai says something like, “we are used to being on the news. when something like the tsunami happens and we are not on the evening news, we feel disappointed.” this film tries, successfully i think, to eek a story out of the symbolism, without deluding itself for a second that the symbolism can be bypassed.
originally, gitai meant for the protagonists to be three guys. at the end, he found himself with three women. natalie portman plays a young american who’s just broken up with her israeli fiancee and, distressed, refuses to leave the car in which she and her potential in-laws were being schlepped around israel as tourists. the car driver, played by hanna laslo (who won a prize at cannes as best actress — first time an israeli film wins anything at cannes), has to go to jordan on urgent business and cannot attend to the distraught portman. finally, they decide to go together. there is an area in jordan (true story) called the free zone and in this area, which is close to the border with iraq and syria, is set us so that people from all bordering countries (including israel and iraq!) can buy and sell cars from and to each other. in their house in the negev laslo’s husband armors vehicles so that they can be used in iraq. laslo’s job is to go to the free zone and finish up a deal her husband has started.
i’m already giving away things. this film has a shot-in-real-time feel, and gitai’s style of keeping the camera really close to his actors and mostly inside the car gives it a hyper-real, slightly hallucinogenic feel (see the scene in the destroyed jordan oasis). portman’s character is totally annoying, but i really loved laslo and, also, hiam abbass, who plays the arab woman with whom she needs to deal once she arrives to the free zone. laslo is a famous comedian in israel, and, although her part is not pre-eminently comic, she made me laugh throughout (disclosure: i had her son in my class in the spring, and the boy kept the class in stitches — and hopelessly disrupted — all semester long. small world).
the three women clearly stand for their respective groups — americans, israeli jews, palestinian exiles — with portman playing the silly, immature, self-involved party, and the other two women bringing the pathos of their people’s situation to bear on their interaction. there is genuine sympathy on gitai’s part for the displaced, impoverished palestinian and jordanian population. the scenes shot as the car drives through amman are heartbreaking — so much desolation.
i think this would be a good movie to discuss, in terms of how narrative and technique help or hinder the attempt to make a political point, and whether the political point gets in the way of narrative. anyone for it?
hey–yeah, this sounds quite good. i’m visiting family this week (unexpectedly, worriedly, but things seemed to have turned out okay), but i’ll put this at the top of my queue and should get to it some time next week…. thanks for the rec, g.
someone on IMDB notes that this film is “as bad as brown bunny without the blow job.” That sounds good to me–so I’m in. But what happened to the plan to see Inland Empire –that DVD is already winging its way to me. but, please Gio, tell me we won’t learn any poignant lessons about intercultural communication.
i’ll give you some intercultural communication, frisoli, if you don’t hurry up and join the pigskin pick’em pool on espn (check your yahoo mail).
oh, jesus, I know nothing about football these days…are the cleveland browns still around?
i put inland empire in my queue, but its description makes me fear for my mental stability, which is always as fragile as a little crocus. so i may have to watch inland empire with one eye closed, or in installments of few minutes. in other words, i may, probably will, be crap.
you would certainly benefit from any kind of poignant lesson, michael, so i think you should watch this in reflexive, open-minded mode, possibly after having purified yourself with yoga and ginger tea.
mike, good luck with your family. hope things keep on being okay, and get better, too. keep us posted (on the blog or on email).
Free Zone arrives tomorrow so I should be able to chime in soon. I also watched Year of the Dog, which I seemed to like as much as Arnab and Sunhee, but I have to gather my thoughts to respond to Arnab’s post.