The Time That Remains

The Time That Remains is a cinematic marvel about war, family and love. Elia Suleiman with his brilliant comic timing accompanied with visually arresting portraits of Israel and yesteryear's Holyland, exposes his personality for the screen. An art house film with all the fixings especially history, cultural entanglement and humanity during a time of great duress. The story depicts a land that has passed us by but memories remain in dialogue, tradition and repetition. A true masterpiece. X Compares to the scope and depth and landscape of great cinema like Roma, the humor of Dr. Strangelove and the ingenious of the Coen Brothers.

A quick history of Absurdistan, the country now known as Israel or Palestine (depending on which part of the wall you end up on). A personalised account starting from the Jewish take over of Palestine in 1948 and leading up to current day Israel. The movie however is less about the big picture, Palestinian-Israeli relations, but more about the very personal story of Elia Suleiman, his father - a resistance fighter - and mother.

The backdrop of history is used with great consequence, as Suleiman drives his tale through varying levels of absurdity and yet manages to deliver an emotionally gripping tale. Scenes of profound sadness, like the death of Elia's father, are preceded by short, but realistic, sketches of the ludicrous and nonsensical, like a tank following a man taking out the trash. However Suleiman delivers it with such class, that he never once dances with being a pastiche and remains a poignant, artistic picture throughout. Instead of making a dramatised account full of grief and sadness, Suleiman does the unthinkable with a devastating effect: laughs it all out.

Elia Suleiman is increasingly proving himself to be not only the most important Palestinian director, but also the best Israeli one as well. Talk about being absurd...

This film has a very distinguished style and sense of humor for such a dark topic on the conflict of Israel and Palestine. It reflects three generations of the conflict through the perspective of Es (the protagonist) who plays a child, a teenager and an elder man. He never speaks perhaps as a metaphor representing the voiceless. One thing I was also able to appreciate as an Egyptian audience, the Egyptian songs by Laila Mourad and Mohamed Abdel Wahab, as well as some Egyptian news references, like on the death of Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970. Something that a Western audience may not at all experience in the same way a Middle Eastern or Arabic Audience would, is almost like a cheery on the icing for people of that culture, a little gift made exclusively for us, that only we can feel nostalgic about and understand the reference to that culture and era. This film portrays the issue as a gray issue and does no only show the oppressive and inhuman acts of the Israeli Militants, like when they throw Es' father off a cliff. A few scenes show a very human side to them as well, like in the scene when they call out to stop a dance party because of curfew, the first idea that came to mind was the cultural deprivation, but when the military figures start dancing to the music track, it highlights that both sides unite by liking the same music. In another scene, when Israeli military move furniture items onto a truck, the listen to music and smoke cigarettes, somehow very subtly reveals them as ordinary military base figures on duty, it does not look so different from Egyptian bases. He also does not glorify all Palestinians as victims. We get to see a Palestinian who joins the Israeli military and is perceived as a traitor, and called out on it, but he explains later how he needs the work to feed his family. Another very interesting portrayal of how a land under an occupation becomes so natural and part of the backdrop and landscape of the environment, like in the scene when a guy on the cell phone who walks back and forth is pointed at with a tank tracking his every move. The guy does not react at all. This film had a very promising subtle message that the issue is gray and complicated and it seems to be a wish to focus on the good sides in both sides and bringing people together.

This may very well be the first film that I have watched by a Palestinian filmmaker, and it was a good one. It deals quite a bit with the oppression of the Palestinian Arabs by Israeli authorities over the years, beginning with the takeover of Palestinian territory in 1948. This follows the life of a family in Nazareth. Much of the story is told quietly and at a distance; the dialogue is minimal. That does not mean this is grim or didactic, not at all. Regular helpings of physical, stage comedy lighten what is a serious story. There are several things that went on that I did not understand - the behavior of certain characters was mystifying, and why do they sometimes speak in English? But that did not ruin things - this is a fine film overall.

"The Time that Remains" is by far one of the most well-made and powerful Arab movies (and specifically Palestinian) to date. Elia Suleiman tackles one of the most prominent issues in the Arab world with beautiful imagery, nostalgia, music, and the silent word.

I usually do not admire having a director act in his/her own film, but Elia Suleiman is his films, they are part of him and his appearance in them as the silent observer simply attacks the emotions and makes the viewer a part of his own life. "The Time that Remains" basically chronicles the life of his mother and father and their 'silent' resistance through the turmoil of the Israeli invasion of Palestine from 1948 till today.

What is so powerful about this film is that how the viewer (and especially an Arab viewer) can go through a history of conflict so smoothly with much joy and come out with a striking view of this history. Suleiman shows will all simplicity how the cause still loves, without blood, with few words, but with a lot of emotions and things to say. The choice of music (classical Arabic songs) make the viewer understand what the beauty of being an Arab is, and how this beauty is slowly fading... fading into a lack of identity.

I watched Suleiman's previous film "Divine Intervention" after watching this one and realized that we do have an Arab auteur director in our midst; his playful style and cartoonish characters all the more strengthen his cause and keep on his silent resistance.

A pure must-see!