21 - 27 March 2002
Issue No.578
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 March 2002 Issue No.578 |
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Nation unto what?
Two documentaries by Palestinian filmmaker Nizar Hassan were shown this week in Cairo. Amina Elbendary watched, perplexed
How can one make a film about the Intifada? It might seem a simple enough undertaking; after all, there are miles and miles of footage shot in Palestine everyday. But, after watching Nizar Hassan's short documentary Tahaddi (Challenge), it becomes clear that to make a film about the Intifada does not necessarily mean filming the Intifada.
Nizar Hassan and his friend and colleague Raed Andoni wanted to participate in a documentary film festival, and the organisers had dedicated the opening night in honour of Mohamed El-Dorra and requested entries in that vein. Readers -- television viewers -- will recall Mohamed El-Dorra; the 12- year-old child whose brutal death -- shot repeatedly by Israeli shoulders -- was captured "live" by the AFP cameraman Talal Abu Rahma. That image, encapsulating life and death, pain and despair not to mention bestiality, has become an icon of the Intifada, an emblem of the tragedy.
But what can be done with this image? Having been turned into a symbol, an icon, it has been fixed, loaded with unbearable symbolism. The filmmakers ask this question of themselves -- what more can one do with this image? -- even as they watch the footage in slow motion and film themselves all the while. They will, however, attempt to make a film about Mohamed El-Dorra. And Tahaddi is a film about exactly that, but also, inevitably, a little more than that: their attempt to make a film about Mohamed El-Dorra.
They haven't made that film yet.
photo: Randa Shaath
How can one make a film about the Intifada? It might seem a simple enough undertaking; after all, there are miles and miles of footage shot in Palestine everyday. But, after watching Nizar Hassan's short documentary Tahaddi (Challenge), it becomes clear that to make a film about the Intifada does not necessarily mean filming the Intifada.
Nizar Hassan and his friend and colleague Raed Andoni wanted to participate in a documentary film festival, and the organisers had dedicated the opening night in honour of Mohamed El-Dorra and requested entries in that vein. Readers -- television viewers -- will recall Mohamed El-Dorra; the 12- year-old child whose brutal death -- shot repeatedly by Israeli shoulders -- was captured "live" by the AFP cameraman Talal Abu Rahma. That image, encapsulating life and death, pain and despair not to mention bestiality, has become an icon of the Intifada, an emblem of the tragedy.
But what can be done with this image? Having been turned into a symbol, an icon, it has been fixed, loaded with unbearable symbolism. The filmmakers ask this question of themselves -- what more can one do with this image? -- even as they watch the footage in slow motion and film themselves all the while. They will, however, attempt to make a film about Mohamed El-Dorra. And Tahaddi is a film about exactly that, but also, inevitably, a little more than that: their attempt to make a film about Mohamed El-Dorra.
They haven't made that film yet.
And they haven't shot "traditional" street fighting scenes that have become a major part of the televised diet, especially for viewers in this part of the world. No, no boys throwing stones at tanks. No, no blood; no strewn limbs; no gore.
In fact the film chronicles a day almost in the life of the two filmmakers as they talk on their Nokia cell phones, have breakfast at fancy coffee shops (in Tel Aviv it transpires; a friend admits shyly to the camera that he is embarrassed about that; they'd better drink and leave quickly), and drive their Japanese cars. The highway looks exactly like Interstate 70, with almost identical road signs in green, and yet as the car and camera come close the viewer realises the sign is in Hebrew -- welcome to Israel.
In wanting to make a film about Mohamed El- Dorra Nizar Hassan and Raed Andoni made a film about themselves.
And if this sounds ridiculous, wait, there's more. One of them lives in Nazareth, in "Israel," the other in Ramallah (which is also Palestine, but supposed to be under PA control) and they want to meet Mohamed El-Dorra's family who live in Gaza.
They never make it to Gaza. And in this absurdity on which the film about the film is based, lies the absurdity of the current Palestinian predicament.
They can all call each other on the cell phone but to meet is an ordeal. Hassan has to drive around Jerusalem using the circling highways that are meant to circumvent Palestinian communities. It takes hours to drive the 35 kilometres. There are checkpoints and checkpoints and more checkpoints. We have seen them on news bulletins, loci of occupation and struggle. Here in Tahaddi, they seem very relaxed, even as they bar the filmmaker from passing through; Israeli Jews in neighbouring cars make fun and throw insults: "Taking the road to the unconscious, huh?" jeers one. "You just can't pass," a teenaged soldier in green fatigues says, with a smile at the checkpoint. Then: "You want to pass? Rent a helicopter," he advises not-very-helpfully.
And that's the supposedly non-violent, benign form of the confrontation. It's just a regular day for two filmmakers trying to get some work done.
Andoni intercedes at the border and gets his friend into Ramallah. And as the car drives through, it strikes you; in sharp, almost painful, contrast to the sleek highway of a few minutes before, now there are mud and swamps, small winding alleys, and shacks -- welcome to Ramallah.
But neither can make it to Gaza to meet the Dorra family. We see them at night at another coffee shop with friends, not in Tel Aviv this time, but probably a qahwa in Ramallah. They make fun of the absurdity of their lives and their situation: take out your identity cards and let's compare. Blue, green, red: Israeli, or PA or something in between. Some have an entry for "religion" but no "nationality," some have an entry for "place of birth," others have "place of residence." One has "Israel" for his place of birth and the other "Ramallah" only -- "as if Ramallah were a state unto itself," he laughs, almost hysterically. They are all Palestinians, though none have official papers that say that.
And it is this issue of identity, of what makes a Palestinian, of who exactly is a Palestinian, that is at the core of the second Nizar Hassan film screened by the American University in Cairo's Core Curriculum Program earlier this week. In Ustora (Legend) the filmmaker tries to reconstruct the history of a Palestinian family. And in the different, often conflicting, stories of the surviving members of this family we get a confusing picture. This is perhaps what Hassan intended, but he doesn't make it any easier on his viewers with the narration going back and forth in a manner the logic of which is not entirely clear. That, added to the relatively modest quality of production, makes following the film more difficult and tiring than was, perhaps, intended.
The legend is the story of the family of Musa Al- Khalil and his wife Amna Al-Qassem of the village of Safouri, and of their children and grandchildren. Safouri was demolished by Israeli occupiers and the surrounding area renamed Zipouri, but the sons can still identify the rubble that is what remains of their home. The grandparents are dead but members of the second and third generation survive to tell Nizar Hassan their life story. Some live in Jordan, others in Nazareth, for many years several lived in the Irbid refugee camp, and one of the sons, Mahmoud, now lives in Germany. Like most Palestinian families they are dispersed in various countries, and they have few opportunities to reunite, even when they are a few kilometres away from each other.
The family fled in 1948 during the war but the grandfather and grandmother, as well as one of the aunts, were to return shortly afterwards, becoming part of the Arab population of Israel. "Many Palestinians," they tell us, "took their house keys with them because they were sure to return." But "Amna took her grandson Salim; he was her key," they tell the viewers. The young boy was passed as his grandparents' own child. And the rifts that ensued within the family are still palpable. Salim, who grew up in Israel and went to Israeli schools and is fluent in Hebrew, would only meet his brothers and sisters when he was a teenager. He felt discriminated against because he was not allowed to join the Israeli army.
Another brother, Mahmoud, left behind in Jordan at one point was to join the PLO and become an activist. He has since moved to Germany where he has settled and married.
In 1994, after the Oslo accords, a family reunion was possible and scenes from home videos are included in the Ustora. Youssef, a younger brother, had trouble recognising the others; he arrives at the Allenby bridge checkpoint and stares at the camera, not sure if this was his family. The scenes are touching, and they highlight what is part of almost every Palestinian family's experience.
Hassan's confusing narrative structure aside, it is amazing the cracks and wounds in the story that emerge as the grown up men meet their own mother and sisters (and Hassan) and argue over interpreting events that took place years and years ago. It is obvious that the mother has never forgiven the family for depriving her of her son Salim. And there is, understandably, tension between the one-time PLO brother and the Israeli citizen brother. The latter would inform Israeli intelligence whenever the former called him or got in touch with him but refused to give them any other information.
Hassan himself is a citizen of Nazareth and the filmmaker is obviously aware of the tensions inherent within the Palestinian nation. Films such as this stress how difficult it is to construct a nation under occupation and in exile, and then how difficult it can be to maintain that construct.
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