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Paradise Now

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Paradise Now
Directed byHany Abu-Assad
Written byHany Abu-Assad,
Bero Beyer,
Pierre Hodgson
Produced byBero Beyer
StarringKais Nashef,
Ali Suliman,
Lubna Azabal,
Hiam Abbass
Distributed byWarner Independent Pictures (USA)
Release dates
February 14, 2005
Running time
90 minutes
LanguagesArabic, English

Paradise Now (Template:ArB) is a 2005 film directed by Hany Abu-Assad about two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack in Israel. It won a Golden Globe for best foreign language film and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.

"The film is an artistic point of view of that political issue," Abu-Assad said. "The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing."[1]

Plot

Paradise Now follows Palestinian childhood friends Said and Khaled who live in Nablus and have been recruited for suicide attacks in Tel Aviv. It focuses on what would be their last days together.

Their handlers tell them that the next day will be the attack. The pair records videos glorifying God and their cause, and they bid their unknowing families and loved ones goodbye. The terrorist group tells Said and Khaled that they should act normally to avoid arousing suspicion while they stay with their families the night before the attack. The next day to prepare for their mission Said and Khaled shave off their hair and beards and don suits in order to look like Israelis, the group of people they are going to attack. Their cover story for why they have transformed themselves is that they are going to a wedding.

An explosive belt is attached to each man; the handlers are the only ones with the keys needed to remove the belts without detonating them. The men are instructed to detonate the bombs at the same place, a military check point in Israel, with a time interval of 15 minutes so that the second bomb will kill police arriving after the first blast.

They cross the Israeli border, but have to flee from guards. Khaled returns to their handlers, but Said runs away. The handlers remove Khaled's explosive belt and issue a search for Said. Khaled believes he is the best person to find Said since he knows him well, and he is given until the end of that day to find him.

After Said escapes from the guards, he re-enters Israeli territory alone. At one point, he considers detonating the bomb on a commercial bus, but he decides not to when he sees a child on board. Eventually, Said reveals his reason for taking part in the suicide bombing. While in a car with Suha, a woman he has fallen in love with — who plays the role of the doubter or the men's conscience [1] — he explains that his father was an ameel (a "collaborator," or Palestinian working for the Israelis), who was executed for his actions. He blames the Israelis for taking advantage of his father's weakness.

Khaled eventually finds Said, who is still wearing the belt and about to detonate it while lying on his father's grave. They return to the handlers, and Said convinces them that the attack need not be canceled, because he is ready for it. Influenced by Suha, who discovered their plan, Khaled cancels his suicide attack. He travels with Said to Tel Aviv to convince him to cancel his attack too. Said manages to shake Khaled by pretending to agree.

The film ends with a long shot of Said sitting on a bus full of Israeli civilians and soldiers, then finally cuts to white. It is left open to the viewers interpretation to determine whether or not Said detonated the bomb.

Production

Hany Abu-Assad and co-writer Bero Beyer started working on the script in 1999, but it took them five years to get the story before cameras. The original script was about one man searching for his friend, who is a suicide bomber, but it evolved into a story of two friends, Said and Khaled.

The filmmakers faced great difficulties making the film on location. A land mine exploded 300 meters away from the set.[2] While filming in Nablus, Israeli helicopter gunships launched a missile attack on a car near the film's set one day, prompting six crew members to abandon the production for good.[3] Paradise Now's location manager was kidnapped by a Palestinian faction during the shoot and was not released until Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's office intervened.[4] In an interview with the Telegraph, Hany Abu-Assad said, "if I could go back in time, I wouldn't do it again. It's not worth endangering your life for a movie."[5]

Distribution and marketing

  • Tagline: From the most unexpected place, comes a bold new call for peace.

Australian release tagline: In the next 36 hours, two childhood friends may do the unthinkable

The Israel Film Fund is underwriting the film’s distribution in Israel.

Statements by the filmmakers

In Hany Abu-Assad's Golden Globe acceptance speech he made a plea for a Palestinian state, saying he hoped the Golden Globe was “a recognition that the Palestinians deserve their liberty and equality unconditionally."[6]

In an interview with a Jewish American Tikkun magazine , Hany Abu-Assad was asked "When you look ahead now, what gives you hope?", "The conscience of the Jewish people" he answered. "The Jews have been the conscience of humanity, always, wherever they go. Not all Jews, but part of them. Ethics. Morality. They invented it! I think Hitler wanted to kill the conscience of the Jews, the conscience of humanity. But this conscience is still alive...Maybe a bit weak...But still alive. Thank God."[7]

Co-producer Amir Harel is a Jewish Israeli, who told reporters that "First and foremost the movie is a good work of art", adding that "If the movie raises awareness or presents a different side of reality, this is an important thing."[8]

Controversies

Oscars

Paradise Now was the first Palestinian film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. An earlier Palestinian film, Divine Intervention (2002), had controversially failed to gain admission to the competition, allegedly because films nominated for this award must be put forward by the government of their country, and Palestine is not a fully sovereign state.[citation needed] However, since entities such as Puerto Rico, Hong Kong and Taiwan have been submitting entries for years although they are not sovereign states with full United Nations representation, accusations of a double standard were made.[9]

Paradise Now was submitted to the Academy and to the Golden Globes as a film from 'Palestine'. It was referred to as such at the Golden Globes. However, Israeli officials, including Consul General Ehud Danoch and Consul for Media and Public Affairs Gilad Millo, tried to extract a guarantee from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that Paradise Now would not be presented in the ceremony as representing the state of Palestine, despite the fact it was introduced as such in the Academy Awards' official website.[10] The Academy Awards began to refer to the film's country instead as "the Palestinian Authority". This decision angered director-writer Hany Abu-Assad, who said it represented a slap in the face for the Palestinian people and their national identity. The Academy subsequently referred to it as a submission from the "Palestinian Territories".[11] In a further complication, Israeli writer Irit Linor points out that "according to internationally accepted conventions, the nationality of a film is usually determined by the country that invested in it - and that while the film was categorized by the Academy as representing Palestine, it was produced with European funds, by an Israeli-Arab director."[12]

On March 1, 2006, it was reported that a group representing Israeli victims of suicide bombings had asked the Oscar organizers to disqualify the film. These protesters, some of them family members of people murdered or severely injured persons by suicide bombers claimed showing the film is immoral and encourages hurting and killing civilians in terror acts.[13]

Responses

Paradise Now has an 88% rating on the review compendium website Rotten Tomatoes.[14]

Stephen Holden, in his October 28, 2005 article in the New York Times, applauded the suspense and plot twists in the movie, and the risks involved humanizing suicide bombers, saying "[it is easier to see a suicide bomber as a 21st-century Manchurian Candidate - a soulless, robotic shell of a person programmed to wreak destruction - than it is to picture a flesh-and-blood human being doing the damage."[15]

Irit Linur, an Israeli novelist and screenwriter, wrote in a February 7, 2006 article in Ynet News that Paradise Now is "an exciting, quality Nazi film." She claims that the sophisticated techniques and symbolism are used to present caricatures, recycle antisemitic myths and even introduce christological associations in the film.[16]

Awards

Academy Award

Golden Globe

Other awards won

Notes

  1. ^ a b Glaister, Dan. "It was a joke I was even nominated", The Guardian, January 20, 2006.
  2. ^ filmjournal.com
  3. ^ ae.philly.com
  4. ^ filmjournal.com
  5. ^ telegraph.co.uk
  6. ^ courant.com
  7. ^ tikkun.org
  8. ^ seattletimes.nwsource.com
  9. ^ mafhoum.com
  10. ^ zaman.com
  11. ^ washingtonpost.com
  12. ^ jpost.com
  13. ^ mercurynews.com
  14. ^ rottentomatoes.com
  15. ^ nytimes.com
  16. ^ ynetnews.com
  17. ^ cca.ukzn.ac.za
Preceded by Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film
2006 		Succeeded by
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