Paradise Now

Some people can consider Paradise Now as propaganda, however, in my humble opinion, this movie is much more than a story about the situation in Palestine. It's a movie that shows how human beings can do horrible things when they are oppressed and how this behavior even seem to make sense when you're taught from the childhood that doing such things is the only way to get freedom.

It's obvious that suicide bombers are murderers, but it's also obvious that they are victims from Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, USA and everyone that gets profits with the violence in the Middle East, so this movie wasn't special to me for showing some kind of sympathy for terrorism if it does. The role of this movie for me was to show a humanized version of a group of people that I usually only take acknowledge by the TV as people whose only objective is to kill the highest possible amount of people.

Here in Brazil we don't have ethnic or religious wars. Here, Palestinians and Jews live sometimes in the same neighborhood and there's never been a terrorist attack. On the other hand, we've got extremely serious problems with violence caused by the oppression that poor people suffer from the Police, that seems only to exist to protect the rich. In May, a criminal organization called PCC (Capital's First Command) attacked more than a hundred of places (most Police stations) in São Paulo, killing approximately one hundred people.

Are these criminals originally bad or their acts are just the consequence of an extremely unequal society? Well, on the TV we only see the criminals and the terrorists, but thank God we have movies like City of God, Carandiru and Paradise Now to show us the human beings.

Paradise now is a very realistic film about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Therefore it's a very contemporary film concerning a topic that still receives a lot of media attention.

The film follows Said and Khaled, two friends who are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel-Aviv. However, something goes wrong and the attack is postponed. Said and Khaled now have the time to think about what they are going to do.

The feelings of the two leading characters are carefully explained and brought to you very realistically by an outstanding performance of Ali Suliman and Kais Nashef. Though it's a little long-winded in the end the story is excellently written. The film explains a difficult situation without taking a stand or forcing you to do so. People who've seen this film will hopefully better understand the Israel-Palestine situation.

Conclusion: Paradise Now is a brilliantly made movie and a must see for everyone.

I thought this was a very powerful and well-made film. The acting was excellent, as are the script, direction, and cinematography. Perhaps the biggest challenge with a film on such a controversial topic is what position it takes, but as a moderate American Jew, I felt it took as objective a position as possible. It does not push one side or another, but merely tells one story about two men chosen for a suicide bombing mission. I was concerned there might be an attempt to get the viewer to sympathize with the would-be bombers, but did not find that to be the case. Ultimately, the story leads you to sympathize with the families and friends of these men, demonizes those who have led them down this path, and simply humanizes the men themselves. There have been some criticisms of the film for focusing too much on Palestinians and essentially reducing the Israelis in the film to background and setting, but I think this was necessary. This is not a documentary about suicide bombings; it is the story of two of the suicide bombers themselves.

As interesting as it was, as undeniably striving for objectiveness, original in its approach and well-made both visually and in terms of production values, I found Paradise Now a little weak narratively, especially in the central part. But when a filmmaker decides to tackle a theme of this calibre, a subject as thorny and well... explosive, not to mention one involving such daunting amounts of moral responsibility towards humankind, you cannot help but feel in awe of their courage a priori.

The attempt to shed light on the unfathomable – how a healthy, "average" young person could ever wish to become a suicide bomber – is quite successfully carried out, and is probably one of the movie's strength. It was the main reason I watched it and possibly Paradise Now's main purpose successfully nailed – and that really is no mean feat. On the other hand, I was confused by the shifts in focus between personal drama (Said's resentment against his father and desire to be different from him) and socio-religious-historical content at the beginning of the movie's second half. I wasn't sure what the director was trying to do... It's impossible to deny, though, that the tension never lets up during the whole time that Khaled and Said have the explosives strapped to their abdomens, much to the filmmakers' credit.

Even more shocking, though, are the accusations levelled against the movie by ordinary viewers – that it's allegedly an apology of suicide bombers, and pro-kamikaze propaganda. Not all these accusations come from Israeli viewers - though most are (while at the same time, many Jewish reviewers loved the movie). One Israeli mother I read from who lost her son in an exploding bus in Tel Aviv claims that humanising the suicide bombers is the equivalent of a direct insult to the memory of her murdered child. Though you cannot argue with the grief of a mother who loses her child in such a horrendous way, you cannot help asking yourself what such people expect: that suicide bombers be portrayed as two-dimensional monsters complete with horns, forked tongues and slitty snake pupils in their eyes? This doesn't bode well for the future of the peace process in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Hany Abu-Assad has tried to give his own personal, brave, heartfelt contribution, and this viewer looks forward to more cinematic efforts from this talent.

PARADISE NOW, like THE WAR WITHIN, educates an American audience on the tragedy of the complex battle of "Arab vs. Jew" and does so in a film that brings this struggle home to the West Bank and gives us a picture of two friends selected to carry out revenge for the death of fellow Palestinians. Well constructed, realistic, informative and yes, even humanistic in presenting us with characters that we would immediately disregard with hatred and contempt.

The journey taken by the friends is painful, personal and disturbing, in that the killing of Jews will only extend the bombings and killings of more Palestinians within the West Bank. PARADISE NOW shows us that the historical roots of hatred between Arab and Jew is one that will never go away, and the film points out this factor visually in building to the final scene on the bus in Tel Aviv. When the camera narrows down to the eyes of the bomber, surrounded by healthy, happy Israeli soldiers, the intense moment of self destruction is inevitable.

The shots of Tel Aviv, the West Bank, the excellent cast, direction and writing and development of the characters makes PARADISE NOW a very important film to see in 2005.