Monthly Archives: February 2014

Movie: Paradise Now (2005)

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Paradise Now—a 2005 collaborative movie between France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Palestine—depicts Palestinian problems from the point of view of Palestinians, focusing on two young Palestinian suicide bombers. Director Hany Abu-Assad is a Palestinian who was born in Nazareth, Israel, and immigrated to the Netherlands when he was 19 years old.

This movie takes the stance that young suicide bombers aren’t monsters at all and that they are ordinary young people. Said and Khaled, two young men given this mission, live without hope in the West Bank in Palestine and turn to terrorism, believing that they can get to paradise by participating in terrorist activity. Khaled is a loser who keeps getting fired from his jobs, and feels that the only way to become a hero is to die as a suicide bomber. His close friend Said is smart and popular with girls, but, since he has the past of his father being executed by fellow Palestinians as a “traitor” for being part of a pro-Israeli faction, he believes he must die as a hero in order to remove the dishonor on his family name.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict originated from the United Kingdom’s three-pronged diplomatic strategy that had the purpose of strengthening the UK both during and after World War I. The first prong was the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence in 1915 against the enemy Ottoman Empire; the United Kingdom promised the Arabs under Turkish control independence in exchange for armed uprising against the Ottoman Empire. The second prong was acquiring financial support for the war from the Rothschild’s, a wealthy Jewish merchant family; to do so, the United Kingdom issued a letter of support for the establishment of a Jewish nation in 1917 through their Foreign Secretary Balfour. The third prong was the Sykes-Picot Agreement; the United Kingdom covertly negotiated with their allies, France and Russia, regarding the division of the Middle East region after the Great War. In the end, the Arab and Jewish armies, together as part of the British army, fought the Ottoman Empire in World War I, and Palestine (containing current Jordan) became mandated territory of the United Kingdom.

After World War II, the United Kingdom chose to give up Palestine, a land rife with political instability, and entrust the intermediation of this problem to the United Nations. In the United Nations General Assembly on November 29, 1947, the UN Resolution 181 that proposed that Palestine be divided—56.5% given to a Jewish nation and 43.5% toward an Arab nation—and that Jerusalem be under international control was approved with 33 for it, 13 opposed, and 10 abstentions. However, in February 1948, the Arab League nation members voted in Cairo against the founding of an Israeli nation, and the antagonism between Jews and Arabs in this land became very serious. When the United Kingdom’s mandate over Palestine ended in May 1948, the Jews, based on the UN Resolution 181, declared their independence on May 14, and the nation of Israel was formed. Simultaneously, a large army consisting of five nations of the Arab League (Egypt, Trans-Jordon, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq) invaded Palestine with the goal to prevent their independence, and the First Arab-Israeli War began. The Arab side, which was expected to be victorious, failed to wield its full power due to internal disunity. Israel, after a hard-fought battle where 1% of their population died in action, came out victorious, and 700,000 to 800,000 Arabs who lived on Palestinian land became refugees. Continuing until today, many conflicts have happened on this land including several Arab-Israeli Wars.

In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed with the objective of liberating Palestine from Israel’s control. In 1993, based on the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel, the Palestine Authority was established. This is an autonomous government that is split into the West Bank between Jordan and Israel, and the Gaza Strip on the northeast side of the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt.

The setting of this movie is the West Bank on the Jordan River. The future of this area is unpredictable, but currently, there are three districts in the West Bank: one district where the Palestine Authority has administrative power as well as control over the police, one where the Palestine Authority has administrative power while the Israeli army controls the police, and one where the Israeli army has administrative power as well as power over the police. Particularly in the third area, everyday life for Palestinians is highly restricted, with everything including home or school construction, well digging, and road building needing permission from the Israeli army. In all three areas, it is possible for Israel to prohibit transit for Palestinians.

It is clear that director Hany Abu-Assad, as a Palestinian, is addressing the situation Palestinians are in, but this movie is not political propaganda. His way of filming this movie is very cautious and he includes humorous scenes; his goal seems to be for the audience to know the true face of the West Bank territory. His philosophy is perhaps most like that of Suha, the fleeting love interest of the protagonist Said. She is the daughter of a hero of the independence movement, was born in Paris, raised in Morocco, and returned to the West Bank. She opposes violent conflict, and she tries to persuade Said to abandon revenge and implement peace in the Palestinian district by means of a nonviolent human rights movement, but this sentiment fails to reach Said.

At the beginning of the movie, there is a scene depicting a young Israeli soldier menacingly checking Suha’s luggage at a checkpoint on her way back to the West Bank. However, at the end of the movie, there are young Israeli soldiers, much like the one in the first scene, on the bus that Said is riding in order to suicide bomb, but the soldiers on the bus are young men with beautiful smiles and look very kind. They are really beautiful young men. However, these young men are to die soon with Said. This movie is not propaganda saying which side is right or wrong, and I feel the director’s wish for the audience to know the true face of Palestine as best as possible without prejudice.

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Movie: In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)

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Angelina Jolie—Hollywood actress and ambassador for UNHCR, an agency that deals with refugees in the United Nations—directed her first movie; this movie set in Bosnia is a melodrama depicting the fates of two lovers—a commanding officer of the Serb army, and a Muslim and Bosniak woman—during the Bosnian War. I hear this movie will premier in Japan in 2013.

I personally like and admire actress Angelina Jolie because she always donates a lot of money to refugees or people suffering in natural disasters, and her contribution to the education of Middle Eastern women and promotion of foster parent organizations was courageous. However, I don’t have much admiration for this movie. I want to summarize my thoughts below.

First of all, English was used for this movie. This movie was largely distributed in America where people may find subtitles to be annoying. Although the actors in the movie all spoke English very well, I would’ve liked to hear Bosnian or Serbian spoken instead. I feel this reduces the authenticity of the movie.

This movie is after all a Hollywood movie. As is expected, the actress playing the protagonist begins by wearing a skirt and sweater, but gradually more skin is exposed and when she is in the hideout of her lover, the Serb commanding officer, she is wearing a dress that looks like something Angelina Jolie would wear on the red carpet… What? Isn’t this character a Muslim woman? From where would she have procured such a stunning, Western-style dress? This actress also resembles Angelina Jolie in her appearance. The actors in this movie are instructed in the Hollywood way of expressing emotion, such as throwing something when angry.

This movie portrays Serbs very one-dimensionally as scoundrels. The historical background setting up to the war is not described. One after another, cruel scenes are shown (such as the raping of a Bosniak by a Serb soldier, or a Serb soldier using a Bosniak woman as a human shield as he shoots at a Bosniak soldier). Bosniak soldiers are portrayed virtuously, but Serb soldiers are always portrayed as ugly and they laugh when they are killing their enemy. The Bosian War started because both the Bosniaks and the Serbs felt they were in danger, and both sides insisted that the other side started the war. However, this movie depicts the Serbs as the obvious bad guy. The cruel scenes serve as proof of this. I think the Hollywood movie method is to feed the audience a clear good guy and bad guy in a situation even though the conflict is very complicated.

Angelina Jolie visits countries all over the world as a goodwill ambassador. I think this movie was based on an impression she gained when she visited Bosnia-Herzegovina, and she wanted justice by conveying what she witnessed herself to the world. She was very shaken by the Serb army’s ethnic cleansing in the area of Bosniaks by not only murder, but systematic rape. Even though the Bosnian War was very complicated, it was very brave and difficult for her as a young foreigner to make this movie. When making this, she may have thought, “I don’t know anything about Bosnia, but because I know about love, I want to depict the Bosnian War with love as the main principal.” In short, this movie appears to be the story of a man and a woman who may have happily had a family if not for this war changing their fates.

However, is there true love between these two? Danijel, the Serb man, and Ajla, the Bosniak woman met just once before the war started and liked each other. Danijel doesn’t know what kind of person Ajla is or what she does. When the war begins, Ajla is taken with other Bosiak women by the Serb army and nearly raped, but the commanding officer of the soldiers that took the women is Danijel and he says to a soldier, “You’ve had enough fun,” and stops him from raping Ajla. Danijel is the son of the highest commanding officer of the Serb army. Danijel tells his subordinates that Ajla is his property and doesn’t let her get raped. On top of that, Danijel helps her escape. However, Ajla comes back to Danijel’s unit as a spy. She is given her own giant room and is brought food every day by Danijel. Danijel gets very angry and kills a subordinate when he discovers the soldier had raped Ajla under the orders of Danijel’s father; also, Danijel tells Ajla military secrets. When I watch Danijel, I get irritated and think, “Whatever the reason for war, why can’t you be responsible for your home country and your men?” In the end, Danijel discovers that Ajla is a spy; he then shoots her and surrenders himself to the UN troops by saying, “I am a war criminal.”

Although the Bosnian War looked like a civil war, the United Nations decided to intervene because the ongoing racial extermination was a crime against humanity. However, is it the best ending for Angelina Jolie to have Danijel declare himself a war criminal at the end? I wonder how the audience reacts to the one-sided blame on the Serbs in this movie. Not all Serbs are murderers and many were not aware of the massive killings being performed. Some short lines in the movie say not all Serbs are bad people, but this is lost among the endless images of brutality within this movie.

Also in this movie, Danijel’s father briefly tells the history of his time as a commissioned Serbian officer and the sad history of his nation, but he speaks in quite a monotone as if reading from a history textbook so his words regretfully do not stay in the audience’s heart.

The Balkan Peninsula was under Turkey’s control, but by the late 19th century, the Ottoman Empire declined and in 1875, the Russo-Turkish War began over this land between Turkey and Russia. After the war, through support from Great Britain who was uneasy about Russia’s policies going south, Austria strengthened their control over Bosnia and Herzegovina and in 1908, Bosnia and Herzegovina were incorporated into Austria. However, Serbia, neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, had the intention to expand as part of the Greater Serbia movement, and so opposed Austria for this land. This became the cause of World War I.

After World War I, because of Austria’s defeat, Serbia became the core of the Serb-Croat-Slav Empire in the Balkan Peninsula and absorbed Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, during World War II, Nazi Germany used Croatia as a puppet government to take over the Balkan Peninsula and Serbs were suppressed. By means of the Croatian nationalist organization Ustaše, Serbs were persecuted along with Jews and any anti-establishment groups, and were taken to concentration camps to be murdered. Faced with this, the Chetniks, a Serb nationalist organization, was formed and it stirred up an anti-Croatia movement.

After World War II, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established in the Balkan Peninsula, their charismatic leader Tito able to form alliances between many ethnicities. During this time, there was little tension between ethnicities and in urban areas, many different ethnicities lived together and marriages tied them together. Yugoslavia was different from other satellite countries of the Soviet Union; movies criticizing the regime were not banned there, and in 1984 they hosted the Sarajevo Winter Olympics. But ethnic conflict resumed after the collapse of the Soviet Union when various countries within Yugoslavia declared independence in 1990. The Bosniaks and the Croatians living within the Bosnian region wanted to be independent from Yugoslavia, which was dominated by Serbs, while the Serbs in that region wanted to remain under Yugoslavia; this was the beginning of the Bosnian War. Later, a dispute between Croatians and Bosniaks started and began a three-way war.

In 1994, there was a military intervention by the United States of America and NATO; in 1995, the war ended after the signing of the Dayton Accords, the peace agreement mediated by the United Nations. In order for this movie to be accurate, Angelina Jolie was said to have asked for the details in the movie to be reviewed by Richard Holbrooke, the Assistant Secretary of State of Clinton’s administration who worked on the Dayton Accords; she also asked other diplomats involved in these negotiation efforts and reporters who covered the Bosnian War. Richard Holbrooke under Obama’s administration was appointed as the special envoy in charge settling the Afghanistan/Pakistan conflict, but in 2010, he became sick and died as a special envoy in office before the completion of this movie.

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Movie: Entre les murs – The Class (2008)

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Since this movie is the movie adaptation of Paris middle school teacher François Bégaudeau’s book Entre les murs (“within the classroom”) which he wrote based on his own experience, François Bégaudeau also wrote the screenplay and performed as himself in the movie. In addition to his main job as a teacher, his careers include being a rock musician, writer, and rock music critic; after winning a César Award as a scriptwriter, being awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and being nominated for an Academy Award, he has added to his resume a career in the movie industry. After his book became popular, he resigned as a teacher and now seems to be doing writing and movie-related work.

Many different races are mixed in this middle school class that is in the 20th district of Paris where immigrants from a variety of areas coexist. This movie mainly depicts the events that occur over the course of one year within François’s class. François is a French teacher that teaches authentic French to students who mostly don’t speak French as their native language. In terms of the French ability of the children, they have no problem with daily conversation, but their verb conjugation is incorrect and they do not sufficiently understand abstract vocabulary or subjunctive mood that is mainly used in writing. Many of the students are black children of immigrants, but their homelands vary—Mali and Morocco in Africa, the Caribbean, etc.—so their cultural backgrounds are diverse; we can’t simply say “immigrant children” or “black immigrant”. Small fights between these children frequently happen.

This movie received the highest accolades at distinguished film festivals and, as a movie about a school with teacher-student relations, I expected a poignant drama of an enthusiastic schoolteacher, but it was actually different when I watched it. This movie does not discuss an ideal education, does not praise either the teacher or the students, and is not a social issue drama depicting the children of immigrants. If entering with such expectations, you will leave with them unfulfilled. Various problems happen one after another and François works hard to respond to them, but he isn’t necessarily able to solve the problems well. This movie simply depicts various incidents—many arguments and conversations between students and the teacher, parents and the teacher, and among teachers—and then the school year just ends. So then some may wonder, what is good about this movie?

First, why did François Bégaudeau write his original Entre les murs? It is because of the inconsolable present conditions of his career as a teacher. A job is needed in order for anyone to survive, so he became a teacher. Since his parents were also teachers, teaching was a familiar occupation. However, a teacher in France is not very well paid, is not thanked by students and parents even when working very hard, and every day is spent responding to students who constantly talk back. He likes his students and seems to have enthusiasm for his job, but nevertheless, if I borrow his words, teaching is “the saddest occupation.” Being a middle school teacher is enormously hard work. Nobody looks down on a teacher (I hope), and everyone thinks that someone must work as a middle school teacher. However, there may not be many people who are willing to be a middle school teacher. It is a problem that, even though people recognize it is an important job, only a few people are excitedly applying for these jobs.

Then why did director Laurent Cantet want to make this book into a movie? Like François Bégaudeau, Laurent Cantet’s parents were also teachers. He had direct knowledge about school teachers and he recognized that education had a significant role in preparing a child for the real world; but he was also aware that, if the education system did not function well, many students fell through the system. For Laurent Cantet who thought about the present condition of education theoretically, François Bégaudeau’s book that concretely conveyed the viewpoint of children and the life of the classroom stimulated his creative mind and I think this was his main motive for making this movie about education. Laurent Cantet’s theme is probably something like, “Education should give children opportunities, but has it become a place that instead narrows the opportunities for children?” For example, a male student who accidentally injures a classmate is expelled for this incident since he is seen as a problem child among teachers, and a female student whose grades are suffering mutters, “I really don’t want to go to vocational school.” I am not very familiar with France’s educational system, but it seems that vocational school is a hopeless dead-end for students that are sent there because of their bad grades.

Finally, why did this undramatic, documentary-like, subdued production unanimously win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and receive overwhelming praise? This movie is not an exceptional movie, but I think it is because an important theme is depicted honestly and modestly. Any citizen watching this movie would have received some education so they are aware that education is important and that the education system is not perfect under the current conditions; but not many movies about education are made because it is not easy to make the educational problem into a dramatic movie. Occasionally, an exceptionally enthusiastic schoolteacher and their exceptional influence as a teacher may be dramatically depicted. Ordinary children and a professional teacher from poor neighborhoods in Paris were chosen from the audition to depict reality beyond the performance by actors. It was actually quite convincing.

This movie raises questions about education, and the main characters the child actors play in this movie should be problem children, but there is a hopeful twinkle in the eyes of the children appearing in this movie. Perhaps while they were involved in the making of this movie as main characters, they started to feel, “I didn’t know film making would be this fun!” or, “How joyful to become the lead role and use my own mind and heart!” Therefore, all the children playing problem children are cute. It may have been slightly unplanned by the director, but the twinkle of these children may be the reason for the refreshing feeling left after watching the movie.

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Movie: Hævnen – In a Better World (2011)

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The original title means “revenge” in Danish, but the English title is “In a Better World” and the Japanese translation is “To You Who Live in the Future”; the English and Japanese titles are not literal translations of the original title, but it is very interesting how they each seem to symbolize a different layer of the theme.

Anton is a Swedish doctor who works at a refugee camp in Africa (probably Sudan) and is separated from his wife Marianne living in Denmark. Their son Elias is bullied in school. One day, a boy named Christian transfers from London into Elias’s class. Christian’s father Claus, after his wife died, moved with his son to Denmark where Christian’s grandmother lives. Elias does not resist the bullying he faces, but Christian convinces him that the bullying will continue forever if he doesn’t fight back and beats up the leader of the bullies. The bullies notice this and stay away from Christian. Christian, having lost his mother, and Elias, possibly losing his father in a divorce, are drawn to each other and a strong friendship buds.

Christian and Elias witness Elias’s father Anton being hit one-sidedly by an unreasonable man. When the boys insist that he ought to retaliate, Anton warns them that, if you retaliate violence with violence, the violence will continue to grow. When he returns to Africa, Anton provides medical care to a young pregnant woman whose abdomen was cut open by the rebel army general, but the woman dies despite treatment. The general comes there seeking medical treatment for a wound. The camp’s medical staff refuses to provide medical treatment, but Anton treats him, feeling it is his duty as a doctor. After treatment, though, the general shows his arrogance and expresses contempt toward the dead pregnant woman, so eventually Anton’s rage peaks and he yells, “Get out of here!” Hearing Anton’s words, the refugees who had until now refrained from acting, out of respect for Anton, proceed to beat the general to death.

In Denmark, Christian decides to get revenge on the man who had hit Anton by blowing up the man’s car. Elias is skeptical of this act, but is drawn in and does it together with Christian. Just before the explosion, they see some strangers—a mother and her child—jog toward the car; Elias jumps out to rescue them and gets hit by the explosion. Christian is investigated by the police and, believing Elias had died, plans to throw himself to his death.

“Revenge” – The movie of this title depicts revenge and its consequences. Marianne could not forgive her husband Anton’s affair. Because of this, Anton goes to Africa which makes Elias feel sad; Elias finds comfort from Christian who helps him, and Elias ends up bombing the car with Christian. Christian believes his own father wished for the death of Christian’s mother suffering from terminal cancer and he can’t forgive his father for letting his mother die. With nowhere to direct his anger, Christian channels it into the revenge he seeks on the bully and the man who unreasonably hits people. Even though Anton disapproves of revenge, he can’t tolerate the rebel army general who was amused by cutting the abdomen of the young pregnant woman. The African husband of the woman who died beats the general to death. This movie expresses that people seek revenge when they are hurt, no matter how trivial or how brutal the act that hurt them is.

“In A Better World”— Perhaps this could be rephrased as “In an Ideal World” where everyone understands each other and there isn’t violence, but since this is only an ideal, this movie depicts the reality where people hurt each other. Or perhaps this title compares the irrational society of Sudan in a war to Denmark which is said to be the most calm and peaceful society among European nations; perhaps it wishes to draw attention to the violence that lurks within the peace of Denmark in various other forms. Do we fight violence with violence? Ignore it? Tolerate it? Or is there a better method? This movie ends without offering an answer.

“To You Who Live in the Future”— Adults say that violence is wrong, but perhaps this is hypocritical. Adults have their hands full dealing with their own problems. Looking at these adults, we hope that the next generation lives differently.

The strongest feeling I got from this movie was, “We don’t know what comes next in life.” There are only a few characters in this story, but at least six people nearly died. The mother and child who by chance were jogging near the car; Elias who protected them; Christian who was about to jump to his death if Anton hadn’t saved him; the bully that was punished by Christian; and Anton, having gained the animosity of the rebel army and angering the unreasonably violent man who hit him, could have been killed. Parents try very hard to raise children. However, children drift away in unexpected directions when their parents have their hands full every day with hard work and their own troubles and don’t have time to think of their children. Fortunately, these family and friends don’t die, but this movie shows how small mistakes, no matter how small, could lead to tragic consequences.

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