Divine Intervention

Divine Intervention is a film that was originally released in 2001. Written, directed by and starring Elia Suleiman, the movie is a collection of intertwined vignettes of live in the West Bank and in the Palestinian city of Ramallah. Divine Intervention does what no movie dealing with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been able to do: find the humor in it. Darkly funny, the film shows a series of scenes that show with great humor the total absurdity of life on the border. With very little dialog, the camera does the talking, showing little slices of how life is when two peoples who are fighting have to live with each other. Underneath the humor is great poignancy though. One of my favorite scenes was when a young tourist stops an Israeli patrolman sitting in his van for directions to a religious site, and the officer doesn't know the way so he goes into the back of the van and brings out a blindfolded, handcuffed Palestinian prisoner to give the girl directions. Quiet checkpoint scenes show how the Israeli guards take great pleasure in totally humiliating Palestinians trying to cross the border in an effort to carry out basic errands, get to work, or go a concert or some entertainment., While most scenes don't carry an overtone of violence, the threat of violence is ever-present. Everyone seems wary and on edge all the time. The lack of dialog highlights the emotions of the scenes, and the actors do a great job at showing what the characters are thinking and feeling without a lot of dialog. The minimalist aesthetic enhances the undercurrent of disconnectedness, and can be jarring the first time you see the movie.

I don't want to give away too much of the movie, but Divine Intervention is one of the best films I've seen in a long, long time. It never hits you over the head with the injustice of the situation, the violence, or misdeeds of extremists on both sides of the conflict the way so many films, documentaries, and news shows about the conflict do. An acerbic, ironic, funny and heart-breaking picture of what daily life in Nazareth is like, this film is a winner. It also has a great soundtrack featuring Egyptian singer Natacha Atlas and Bangladeshi DJ brothers Joi.

The film was submitted for Oscar consideration in the Best Foreign Film category in 2004, but the Academy refused to consider it because Elia Suleiman is a Palestinian, and the Academy refuses to recognize Palestine as an independent state. This outrageous slight by Hollywood was corrected in 2006 when the controversial Palestinian film "Paradise Now", about two West Bank friends recruited as suicide bombers, was a contender for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. Paradise Now lost the Oscar to the South African film Tsotsi.