Soif

Tawfik Abu Wael's harsh film 'Atash' tells the story of a frankly mad old man as he tyrannises his family in an attempt to sustain an untenable existence in the Palestinian desert. Other than this, there's not a lot to say about this film; there's nothing to offset the portrayal of suffering, and while it's certainly atmospheric, there's not much direct plot either: we're left to guess at the characters' motivations and histories, instead of having them spelt out. Normally I like this in a movie; but every film needs some sort of hook to draw the audience in. Lacking that, this bleak tale left me bored more than moved.

If you are not fond of slow silent visual movies, I apologize but I can not recommend you of this one since films being so are the things to make them worth while their duration to my opinion.

As I like, it's again a Beckett kind of story though inspired by a true story: The existent of life where no life exist. A family dragged by it's patriarch to an abandoned place in order too keep owning it's territory, with hardly having a reasonable supply of water to be up to while there. An unsolved and unexplained tension between a father and daughter and traditional annoying matter of a son taking his fathers place since it is the only reasonable place for him to take.

In a Conversation between the director and audience I enjoyed listening to a rather intelligent person refusing to expose or, better if I say force one opinion to his own by telling in words what he wished us to see on the screen.

The film allows you to keep and exercises you ability to think and understand. The great, talented photographer (Sodry) drawer you deeply inside a place where you never were, probably never will be while keeping the real colors and shapes of the environment and making it look even better than it would in real life.

I highly recommend being patient and seeing it through, if you enjoy the activity of thinking and resent being told what you see while seeing it, believe me, you will not regret!!!

A Palestinian patriarch has moved his wife, son and two daughters to an abandoned settlement (former Israeli military outpost?) in a desolate valley, where they survive by (illegally) cutting down trees and burning them to charcoal, which they sell. The patriarch has sought this isolation, at least in part, to escape from the public shame brought about by his older daughter's "disgrace" (rape?) years earlier. The family's bleak existence is made far worse by the father's obsessive, brutal and dictatorial character.

To accept the premises of the film, you are required to suspend credibility. How could these people avoid discovery when they build huge fires at night in an area patrolled by the Israeli Army? Why would any of the family members tolerate the patriarch's abuses? But the largest question posed by this film, in my opinion, goes beyond the issue of plot credibility: Why was it made? The fact that the director is Palestinian does not prove that this film is anything other than it seems: an Israel-sponsored hatchet job, intended to reinforce stereotyped notions of Palestinians as brutal, uncivilized and incapable of self-government. "Atash" ("thirst") should make you thirst for an honest, realistic film about contemporary Palestinian life and Israeli oppression.

Barry Freed