Private

A group of Israelite soldiers occupy the house of a Palestinian family and force them to live locked in one of the rooms while they come and go inside the house. Well, thank goodness someone shows the Palestinian drama (for a change). There are plenty of movies about the Holocaust, there are lots of directors such as Amos Gitai, but only a few of them are telling the truth: and the truth is that Israelites is as terrorist as the Palestinians can be. Israelites use planes and tanks, and the Palestinian use suicide squads. Them both achieve the same: the killing of hundreds of civilians, but the question is: who shot first?? Who occupied Palestina??

"Private" is nothing like a great movie, but it is a great document which explains the complicate situation of that area. Those who don't really care about Israelite/Palestinian conflict won't find much incentive in watching this one.

*My rate: 6/10

This is one of the most true, accurate, and realistic movies on the conflict I have ever seen. I have been to Palestine several times in my life, and also know a family who lives in Palestine who actually had this home occupation happen to them in real life. I can say from first hand experience that this film does an incredibly good job with re-recreating the atmosphere life when ones home is occupied by Israeli's soldiers, which believe it or not is a very common thing for many Palestinian families.

The acting is brilliant, and I was truly impressed with how simple, yet powerful the film was. For anyone who would like to TRULY understand the Israeli Palestinian conflict, this film is a must see. It is not a two sided situation like the Israeli revisionists like to make it out to be. It is a one sided situation with the Palestinians being the unfortunate victims of a 60 year military occupation. The Israeli government is one of the most oppressive governments ever to exist, and is easily comparable with the Nazi government and their military occupation of France, which was also a one sided situation with the Jews being the unfortunate victims of the horrific atrocities of the Nazi Regime.

Please do not listen to the folks who erroneously propagate that Israel is the victim. Such people, even though perhaps well intentioned, are in manifest error and probably never even been to Palestine, let alone live there, and this film demonstrates with pin point accuracy the stress that 95% of Palestinian families will go through.

The first half of "Private" is frustrating as a set piece of European intellectualism and inauthenticity strained to establish a logic puzzle mind game, but the second half rises to the level of universal humanity.

There have been many movies about the stubborn old idealist who infuriates his family with his implacability ("Man of La Mancha," "The Field," "Straight Story," etc.) but co-writer/debut director Saverio Costanzo sets this one as a barely-believable Shakespeare-quoting, educated, middle class, secular Palestinian holding on to his house and his very large family amidst the volatility of the West Bank territories.

Each member of the family represents a type that has some similarity to the family in "Raisin in the Sun" -- the exhausted housewife who just wants her kids to be safe, the beautiful eldest, enscarfed daughter who argues against leaving for a European education to the apathetic sports-mad teen boy radicalized by his conflicts with Israelis to the traumatized little girl and the big-eyed curious, adorable little brother.

With much of the film shot in dark as shaky, pseudo-documentary digital video like night vision goggles, the forced comparison to "Diary of Anne Frank" doesn't quite hold up as the family is locked into their living room only at night by occupying Israeli soldiers as it is a principle not survival itself that the father is insisting upon. They seem to have complete daily freedom to shop and go to school (they say "madrassa" on the soundtrack but we see them do math homework not rotely memorize The Koran), but not to host friends.

While the film does well build up the tension of this nightly, stressful ritual, that is also true in nonpolitical hostage films from "Petrified Forest," to "Key Largo," "Desperate Hours," and on and on. The Israeli soldiers are as much types as the soldiers in the TV series "Over There." There's the barking sergeant, the sensitive intellectual and the bored joker just doing his job, but with the casual mention that these frustrated reservists are commuting distance from home, as was seen in "Kippur." The film is also unfair in only hinting at what attacks they, let alone their families at their home towns, have endured from Palestinian civilians to make them so aggressive and jumpy.

While it is ironic that the Palestinians and the Israelis have to speak broken English to each other to communicate, the larger themes are confused in perception to the audience because it is not clear what the participants do and do not understand as most of the conversations are translated for us in the subtitles. This is important because the second half of the film reaches an intriguing point where each side slowly starts to perceive each other as individuals and not as just "the other."

The turning point is when the oldest daughter breaks the rules restricting the family downstairs and spies on the soldiers billeted upstairs. Motivated initially by some kind of revenge fantasy, she is gradually overcome by natural curiosity, and perhaps voyeurism as they are hunky young men, and begins to parse out their relationships from their body language and activities, which she later relates fantastically to her equally curious younger brother. Shot only from her viewpoint, we begin to realize that a narrow sliver is really how each side has been seeing the other all along.

The film leaves no doubt that such insights are brief blips in the ongoing struggles between both sides that leave tragedy in the wake of the continued cycle of miscommunications and misperceptions.

Oddly, this is the second recent Italian film about terrorism (Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, notte)) that uses a Pink Floyd-related song too heavy-handedly on the soundtrack (here a cover of "Perfect Sense, Part 1" from Roger Waters's Amused to Death).

Today the 3rd Amendment to our Constitution appears to be a forgotten artifact of the Founding Era, for it forbids a practice that no longer troubles Americans - the quartering of soldiers in private homes. This was a big problem until the Revolution. This film demonstrates the practice in the Israli-Palestinian conflict as Israeli soldiers take over a Palestinian families home.

The father, Mohammed, struggles to keep his family from harm while he tries to maintain a sense of dignity in the face of this insult. Mohammed Bakri turns in a great performance in this film.

The most interesting aspects of the film are the different affects on the young children, and the depiction of some of the difficulties soldiers face in carrying out orders.

Well worth your time to see another aspect of war.

That a film which depicts the reality of so many actually was shown in the US is a huge shift. With a growing desire for many Americans to finally learn about the 40 year illegal occupation of Palestine and the ensuing suffering...this mild film gives a 'peek' of that reality. That ordinary families endure this and worse is not the point, but that so many still fail to comprehend is. I only wish the film got wider distribution and longer theater play time. The viewer experiences increasing tension and angst as there is no sense as to what the next crisis may be or who will be effected. Only the sense of futility and isolation remains. Those with the power continue to arbitrarily allow or end life on the spot whilst those without power can only continue to use reason and intellect to survive. How a people can continue to exist and even succeed academically or emotionally is a testament to the human spirit. This family integrates their parental respect and internal values as too few in the west even comprehend. An excellent cast and exceptional storyline which is rarely if ever seen in the States. Well done!

..WELL DONE!