"Paradise Now" Directed by Hany Abu-Assad Warner
Independent Pictures
Three men stand on a grassy hill arguing about the evenness of a
newly installed car bumper. Gray smoke hovers in the sky of the
West Bank city of Nablus, Palestine. The inescapable everyday life
is far from glorious.
But amid the poverty and the occasional rocket blast, childhood
best friends Saïd and Khaled are offered an escape from the
inevitable.
They are offered glory.
They are offered suicide.
Winner of the 2005 Amnesty International Award, writer-director
Hany Abu-Assad’s “Paradise Now” documents the
emotional breakdown of two young Palestinian men recruited as
suicide bombers by an unnamed Palestinian reformist
organization.
An incarnation of many an untold tale, the film attempts to
provide an answer to the nagging question: Why?
After being informed of their mission, Saïd and Khaled are
kept apart. They are escorted to the homes of their families for a
last goodbye, unable to reveal the task that lies ahead. Their
target: Tel Aviv, Israel.
Filmed on location in Palestine and Israel, “Paradise
Now” elicits a twisted form of Murphy’s Law. Every bump
in the road to success triggers more chaos. And the respect the
potential suicide bombers once held for their mission becomes
nauseatingly perverted.
Lead actors Kais Nashif (Saïd) and Ali Suliman (Khaled)
have a dynamic chemistry expressed at times simply through physical
and facial interaction. Even when speaking in their surprisingly
fine-tuned English (most of the film is in Arabic), the actors
remain strongly attached to the ethnic and religious identities
they embody on-screen.
The cinematic grain of the film, a result of the
director’s decision not to film digitally, helps to
distinguish the story of these two from the faceless men of
worldwide news reels, allowing the filmmakers to capture the
personal tale of these suicide bombers while maintaining the
reality of the Palestinian tragedy.
It can be very difficult to understand the rationale behind a
self-sacrifice aimed at ending innocent lives, especially when the
only point of view we receive is that of the American news media,
and Abu-Assad is only partially successful in making us understand.
Though the tips of many icebergs are revealed, we fail to reach the
depths of the characters’ ultimate decisions. We sympathize
with Saïd and Khaled as human beings, but we remain
frustratingly alienated from their identity as potential
bombers.
The most impressive performance comes from Lubna Azabal, who
plays Suha, the love interest in the story and a symbol of wealthy
Palestine. Drenched with passion against the bombers’
undertaking, she provides a necessary ““ but ultimately
ignored ““ balance to the radical point of view presented by
the organization.
Instead of an acceptance of Suha’s reasoning, we are
privileged to an extended chase scene that is both monotonous and
out of place. The love story is underdeveloped, and tidbits of
Middle Eastern culture wait desperately to be explored.
The film is ultimately overly contrived, and tries too hard to
produce a meaningful message.
“Paradise Now” presents a noteworthy topic in an
artful way. Given the subject matter and its contemporary social
relevance, the film’s potential for an intense leap into
rugged emotion is laid out and waiting.
But even though the film is short, it is still often sluggish.
And it fails to ever reach its potential.
““ Devon Dickau