Review of Paradise Now (2005) by Mike S — 05 Feb 2011

This film has a difficult task of having us follow two best friends, Khaled and Said, as they are picked to be suicide bombers. These are not men who go around constantly bringing about violence and death, but who, up until this point, have led fairly normal lives and now must prepare themselves for death and why they should die: because others tell them to, for a religious calling, or as an escape from a life they don't wish to live anymore? Complicating matters is Suha, a woman who Said has fallen in love with. Her father is a celebrated martyr, yet she does not believe in violence and feels that peace can be attained through other means and effects the lives of both Khaled and Said.

While this film does a good job at showing us there is a human element behind even the most unthinkable acts, it was hard for me to really connect with the characters at times. I also didn't really completely follow all of the choices the characters made and thought some of them were made simply to provide a twist since they were heading strongly in one direction only to pull a 180 and do something abruptly different.