What did I learn from watching The Promise?
Palestinians are warm, family-loving, loyal, peaceful, noble people, rich in spirit. Even the best Jews are hapless dupes of an evil police state; the rest are cold, heartless, scheming, violent and greedy—the opposite of noble.
And the Brits? God bless those Brits! They are a wise and altruistic people who once ran a worldwide empire purely as an act of selfless philanthropy, bringing civilization and maintaining peace among lesser peoples. If only the Brits still ruled the world!
Seriously, there is not a Palestinian in this movie who is not noble. And not a Jew who is not ignoble. The Brits are a bit more mixed—one of them, after all, falls for a Jewess and becomes yet another pawn in their evil scheme. But our British hero and heroine are shining examples of a type known in another era as the Ugly American—know-it- all buttinskys who think they possess an unerring moral compass and feel obliged to stick their noses in other people's business, certain that only they, the Brits, can sort things out. As foreigners abroad, it would never occur to them to simply mind their own business.
The leading actors are also very good looking. Kosminsky knows that the surest way to keep an audience watching is to offer excellent eye-candy. But there is no nudity, or even much skin at all. The women are hardly even glimpsed in the love scenes, staying hidden under the sheets. The Promise is unusually chaste for a miniseries made in 2011, and I wondered about this, until I realized that Kosminsky deliberately deleted any naughty bits so as not to offend any prudish Palestinian members of the audience.
As filmmaking, The Promise is above average. I'd give it a solid six stars. As propaganda, its scores nine (negative) stars, because being duped into watching propaganda puts me in a bad mood. That's a net negative three, which can only be scored here as one star.
About halfway through this four-parter, I still hoped the story might resolve in a nuanced and morally complex manner worthy of the thorny material—the sort of story we get from the best of le Carré or Graham Greene. But by the end, there is no ambiguity. There are good guys and bad guys—and a filmmaker with a clear agenda.
Palestinians are warm, family-loving, loyal, peaceful, noble people, rich in spirit. Even the best Jews are hapless dupes of an evil police state; the rest are cold, heartless, scheming, violent and greedy—the opposite of noble.
And the Brits? God bless those Brits! They are a wise and altruistic people who once ran a worldwide empire purely as an act of selfless philanthropy, bringing civilization and maintaining peace among lesser peoples. If only the Brits still ruled the world!
Seriously, there is not a Palestinian in this movie who is not noble. And not a Jew who is not ignoble. The Brits are a bit more mixed—one of them, after all, falls for a Jewess and becomes yet another pawn in their evil scheme. But our British hero and heroine are shining examples of a type known in another era as the Ugly American—know-it- all buttinskys who think they possess an unerring moral compass and feel obliged to stick their noses in other people's business, certain that only they, the Brits, can sort things out. As foreigners abroad, it would never occur to them to simply mind their own business.
The leading actors are also very good looking. Kosminsky knows that the surest way to keep an audience watching is to offer excellent eye-candy. But there is no nudity, or even much skin at all. The women are hardly even glimpsed in the love scenes, staying hidden under the sheets. The Promise is unusually chaste for a miniseries made in 2011, and I wondered about this, until I realized that Kosminsky deliberately deleted any naughty bits so as not to offend any prudish Palestinian members of the audience.
As filmmaking, The Promise is above average. I'd give it a solid six stars. As propaganda, its scores nine (negative) stars, because being duped into watching propaganda puts me in a bad mood. That's a net negative three, which can only be scored here as one star.
About halfway through this four-parter, I still hoped the story might resolve in a nuanced and morally complex manner worthy of the thorny material—the sort of story we get from the best of le Carré or Graham Greene. But by the end, there is no ambiguity. There are good guys and bad guys—and a filmmaker with a clear agenda.