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philo_lund42
Reviews
Promises (2001)
Okay, okay. That's nice, but does it miss the point?
A lot of people liked this film. Heck, I even like this film. I laughed, I cried...
BUT...
This isn't a Hollywood film about fictional characters in a fictional situation. It's a documentary about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. So I have some very serious problems with the overall approach of the film.
First of all, the main scenes in this film are built on the manipulation of reality by the filmmakers. In the two crucial scenes in the film, in which Palestinians are brought out of the West Bank to visit the remains of their village and Israeli children are brought into the West Bank to play with Palestinian children, the action is able to take place ONLY because the film's producers intervened and set up the situations.
Now, to their credit, the directors don't hide the fact that they are manipulating reality. But just the fact that they do, and that this is what the entire crux of the film is based around, leaves me feeling a little empty. After all, wouldn't it be more to the point to show that, in fact, if you are Palestinian living in the West Bank you will NEVER be able to go visit the remains of your village in what is now Israel, and if you are Israeli you will NEVER go to a Palestinian refugee camp to find out what the "enemy" is actually like in person? I realize that these scenes are constructed to make a point. But I prefer documentaries that rely on the way things are, rather than the way things could/should be.
And in creating this alternative to actual reality, the filmmakers have managed to gloss over the actual point that they SHOULD be making in a film about the Palestinian / Israeli conflict -- which is that the Israeli military occupation itself is at the root of this trouble, and that lifting it is the key to peace. Instead, a starry-eyed illusion is created in which, if we could all just meet each other and get along, then all the problems would be solved and the divisions mended. True enough, perhaps -- but where is the concrete truth, the actual root of separation?
For all its lovely tearfulness, this film serves mostly to leave us feeling warm and sad, rather than address the actual issues that need to be addressed for this conflict to end.
Gaza Strip (2002)
More than an excellent documentary, a cry for freedom
Not only is this film a great example of verite documentary film-making, but it has the courage to take a moral stand and point of view in this extremely controversial conflict. At a time when almost all mainstream media has chosen to forget that the Israelis are militarily occupying the Palestinian Territories, "Gaza Strip" steps forward and pulls out all the stops to show the reality that gets left out of major news reporting.
Following a free-form thread of characters and events, the films starts out through the eyes of a 13-year-old paper boy in Gaza. He resurfaces throughout the film and provides a base of narration that carries us through the entire length of the Gaza Strip, from Gaza City to Raffa and Khan Yunis. The scenes in this film are each powerful on their own, but together they are a bleak testimony of the horror of occupation, and a cry for freedom.
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Not bad, but some criticisms...
I thought this film did a good job of summing up the vapid dumbness of the Bush Administration, probably the worst executive branch cast of characters in the history of the United States. It's subjective, one-sided ... but hey, at least it's honest and up-front about where it stands.
However, I thought a few things were a bit silly: First of all, the finger is always being pointed at the Saudis, and -- it would seem from the visual language in the film -- at Arabs in general. And okay -- Bush is an oil guy from an oil family, and the Saudis have a lot of oil and influence with the Bushies -- we all understand that. But watching this film, you get the impression that the Saudis were also somehow connected with the invasion of Iraq, etc. When in fact, the Saudi government came out in opposition to the war, whatever private feelings might have been there at the time.
Furthermore, there is absolutely no mention of Israel in this film, which is weird, considering that the people in the Bush administration who planned this war in Iraq since the 1990s were very upfront in their writings on the subject that it was a project designed to "reshape the security environment" for Israel. And Israel trained US forces, provided intelligence support, and received lucrative oil contracts (yes! Israeli oil companies supplied product to US forces in Iraq, a country that actuall *has* oil of its own...) connected with the Iraq invasion. But no mention of Israeli influence on the planning of the Iraq invasion. It was all the Saudis and the oil connection. Hmmm.
I don't suppose the fact that this film was produced by two very strongly pro-Israel guys has anything to do with the omissions in this film? We're left to wonder.