Review of Paradise Now (2005) by Stern — 19 Jul 2014

The movie started promising, with a good pace and good acting, but sadly fell flat on the floor. It is as if a nice scenery, theatre and situation has been built, only to remain mute in the most important moment.

I admit I had high expectations because of all the hype, but I feel that my disappointment is just. The movie pretends to explain and explore the character of a suicide bomber- with his motivations, background and consequences- but this exploration was very artificial. Instead of internal conflict, doubt, fanaticism, volcanic fire or revenge, the suicide bomber is just a guy preaching to you political slogans about occupation, oppression and international injustice. Characters are also prone to long monologues where they aren't interrupted, answered or have their points discussed. It's not surprising that this movie was done by an arab living in Europe since a couple of decades, with european funds and production; it reeks all the time of the distant, elitist and self-righteous discourse that doesn't let the palestinian arab speak for itself, instead reducing him to an indian being killed or opressed by all-distant evil cowboys. The movie lost many chances of exploring good things. Scenes inside Israel where the contrast with Palestine was only hinted at, encounters with settlers, doubts about religion, the family structure in palestinian cities, all of this was only briefly looked at without further exploration.

The movie had a big potential but didn't fulfilled it. I'm sure all the good reviews and nominations it has are only because of the politics behind it. If it was a movie about sunni suicide bombers in Iraq or christian militants in Lebanon, no one would care. Sadly I was hoping for enlightenment about Palestine without sugar coating and I only got out wondering if the jews would be left alive at all in the situation of arabs winning the '48 war.