Murder, Lies, and Videotape

As you read this, I will be away from my desk. While I am gone, I will be posting a mini-retrospective of some of my previously published, copy-righted work. The articles seem to hold up. In some cases, I will introduce the piece. In most instances, I will let the piece speak for itself.

Murder, Lies, and Videotape - Nov. 1, 2005

“Paradise Now” is a brilliant and powerful piece of propaganda which has already won the Blue Angel Award for best European film at this year’s Berlin Film Festival and which has also been sold to 45 countries, including Israel. The film was financed by Dutch, French, and German backers. The director, Hany Abu-Assad, who has lived in Holland for the last twenty years, describes himself as a Palestinian with an Israeli passport. Reviewers have described the film as an attempt to “humanize” suicide killers, to “dramatize” what goes through their minds, and as an “ingeniously calculated thriller.”

Some reviewers have suggested that Abu-Assad has actually endangered himself by portraying the terrorist-recruiters as cold and manipulative (which he surely does), and by allowing two of his characters to question-and rather passionately-whether suicide bombing missions are effective responses to oppression and occupation. (Note: With one exception, they do not question whether they are “moral” or not). Finally, reviewers on at least three continents have also congratulated Abu-Assad on his careful research and solid documentation into the matter.

Nothing could be further from the truth-although I will grant him this: He is an artist, and a very good one. He excels in nuance, subtlety, irony, humor, character, and drama. Said (one of the suicide bombers played by Kais Nashef) is as heartbreakingly soulful and innocent as Giancarlo Giannini was in “The Seven Beauties and in “Swept Away.” Nashef resembles him as well. The tale is gripping and tragic-as long as you accept his exceedingly close-cropped informational frame. Israel and Israelis do not exist in this film. Israelis are depersonalized and utterly demonized. For most of the film we see Israelis only as soldiers: ominous, hard-eyed, helmeted, armed or in tanks. The film betrays no understanding that there is more than one side to this tragic story. Yes, feature films are not obliged to present opposing points of view-that’s something only expected of Israeli or pro-Israel artists, film makers, and writers. But the film is supremely ahistorical, anti-historical, and it is also based on a series of lies and omissions, and on one outright fantasy….Continue Reading >>