Change Your Image
chicagocamelgirl
Reviews
Amreeka (2009)
Huzzah!
Knowing my deep interest in the subject of Palestine, a friend tipped me off to this movie. "Have you seen the trailer yet?" she asked. "It looks hilarious and beautiful, and poignant".
She wasn't wrong.
Over the last ten or twelve years, I have been gleaning as much information and experience as I can about the Palestine/Israel question. I found this film to be an excellent, genuine portrayal of not only life in occupied Palestine, but also of what life is like for those who choose to emigrate. It isn't a high-budget, high-production value film, but it is sensitively written, superbly acted, and the characters stay with you long after you leave the theater.
Not only that, but it is so heartening to be able to see a movie about Arabs that portrays them simply as people instead of terrorists, and is honest about the kind of racism they face in this country on a regular basis. Lets see more of these kinds of films, please! Mabrook to all those who worked on this gorgeous film!
Yadon ilaheyya (2002)
Love and Pain for each other, and for Palestine
While during the film I was often a little baffled at the point of the montage, or wondering how it was all going to fit together at the end, by the time we got to the end I was absolutely amazed at this film.
It occurred to me that perhaps this is not a film about the Palestine/Israel conflict, but rather a concept film that happens to be set in the Palestine/Israel conflict. But then I realized that saying that isn't giving the point of the film enough credit, either.
I wonder if perhaps one needs to have seen the region first-hand in order to to truly understand this film- how Palestinians are forced to live, and make the best life for themselves as they can, what really goes on at checkpoints, how some Palestinians collaborate with Israeli authorities (if you didn't understand that the house that got hit with a Molotov cocktail and then sprayed with gunfire was the house of a collaborator, then perhaps that explains why you didn't understand the movie), the way the Israeli authorities use any means of control and how Palestinians resist that however they can (the scene where they fix the road, only to have the old man who was taken for questioning return to destroy the road).
Besides that, however, I think this film is a feat of cinematography. The camera angles themselves are unique and brilliant, the sparse use of dialogue and the small montages full of symbolism and heavy with truisms give this film a beautiful and haunting feel. It will stay with me for a long, long time. The scene at the very end with the pressure cooker, and Amu saying "Turn it off, that's enough!" is how every Palestinian feels about living under Israeli occupation. Elia Suleiman gives us a rare chance to see that for ourselves- make sure you take it.