Art, I just saw this film on Sundance channel it follows a delegation of international writers who visit the west bank. Individual writers speak their words. Some are Palestinians others are from abroad. It is an excellent film and much of the poetry is very moving, nina
Music & Culture
Film review: Remembering Palestine and Writers on the Borders
Maureen Clare Murphy, The Electronic Intifada, 3 June 2004
Like every other aspect of Palestinian life, art and culture, though not
destroyed have been crushed under the heavy weight of the Israeli
occupation's tanks and curfews. The documentary films Writers on the Borders
and Remembering Palestine feature international writers and artists who
visit Palestine and find a shocking landscape of destruction. But, as the
narrator Dominique Dubosc explains in Remembering, the question is not so
much one of succeeding to restart art schools in the West Bank and Gaza, as
being there to bear witness. Like Mahmoud Darwish tells an assembly of
writers in Borders, it's about "carrying with us [the Palestinians] this
burden of hope."
Remembering Palestine is not really a documentary of the French artist
Dubosc's project to rebuild art schools in Palestine. It's more of a video
diary, which allows viewers to see the footage Dubosc captured in his
travels around Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Gaza, and his drawings done in
reaction to what he sees. While chronological, the film doesn't embrace the
usual linear form of narration. Instead of explaining what exactly is
happening at an arts school in Gaza, the camera prefers to linger on each
students' hands instead of their art work or their conversation.
Dubosc is interested in the quiet parts of Palestinian life as much as the
unpleasant imagery of Israeli tanks and helicopter missile strikes (the
aftermath of which his camera records). The quietness of Ramallah under
curfew is not something that can be explained in a newspaper article that
emphasizes body counts, soundbites from politicians, and so on. In a
vignette entitled "All of life on the rooftops," viewers hear the rustling
of ribbons tied on wires on rooftops, a cat meowing, and the muffled din of
children playing indoors or in the alleyways.
But there is also a different kind of silence in Gaza, the silence of death
after an Israeli missile drops on a car and strikes a boy, girl, and a young
man, as is shown in the film. Dubosc records the sound of the helicopter in
the air, but the footage of the bodies being pulled from the carnage is
eerily silent. Although the film doesn't provide any context other than the
date, this missile strike was the one that assassinated Hamas leader Salah
Shehadeh, along with 14 other Palestinians, including nine children.
Equally as powerful as the quiet scenes of disaster after the missile
strike is Dubosc's footage of kites dotting the sky, a daytime constellation
for a people under curfew. The network of kites, flown by children from
their rooftops, communicate hope, and serve as anonymous messages of unity
defying the Israeli apache attack helicopters that all too often occupy the
sky over Palestinian territory.
Like how Dubosc's diary-like drawings are recorded by the camera, the
writers from China, America, France, and Nigeria poetically narrate their
experiences of visiting with their Palestinian peers and refugees in Rafah
and Ramallah in Writers on the Borders. Their reflections perform a
journal-like function as well, interspersed with footage of the writers
going through roadblocks, and speaking to other culture-makers in Palestine
and Israel.
French writer Christian Salmon, to an audience of Palestinians, says he
learned a new word while at a checkpoint earlier that day: "sabreen," or
patience. Because the Palestinians have so much patience, he says, the
"future belongs to you." And after being told by some elderly Palestinian
women in the West Bank that Palestine is their right, and that Ariel Sharon
is an ass, Salmon says, "of their words, I understood nothing," adding,
"this chorus of women was like that of the Greek tragedies."
The writers are given tours of the West Bank and Gaza, and find that the
way Palestinians are treated by the Israeli occupying forces is one of
systematic mass punishment. A young woman in a refugee camp explains that
when Israeli soldiers stationed themselves at her family's house, "to
impress us, they broke the T.V." The writers see that not only is the T.V.
smashed, but every wall in the home has a huge hole in it, as though the
soldiers couldn't be bothered with using any doors.
One of the saddest moments of the film is when the writers visit a
Palestinian man whose olive tree groves are being chainsawed by some young,
nervous-looking Israeli soldiers. While the chainsaw buzzes away, the
sitting man wipes his tears, asking, "How will I feed my children now that
they have taken everything?" Saying that all he has left is God and his
land, the man adds that the soldiers are razing his land in order to build
the so-called security wall. The man better describes it as "this wall of
injustice, this racism."
Upon visiting Birzeit University, the writers find that Palestinians must
leave their vehicles at a roadblock and cross 500 meters of road to a taxi
stand on the other side. "This is not a security measure but collective
punishment," one of the writers narrates. At Birzeit, the writers pen
messages on a large pad. American Russell Banks writes, "The stones of
Palestine have tongues. They speak. Listen to them!" Portuguese writer Jose
Saramago jots, "A lack of water for this flower," and sketches a little
drawing of a daisy. A Palestinian writer tells his international peers,
"what is shocking to you has become banal to us," adding, "what shocks your
conscience has become our daily lot.
One of the writers, who is not keen to meet heads of states, narrates how
Yasser Arafat thrives in defeat and rises like a phoenix from the ashes.
Upon meeting Arafat, the exiled Chinese poet Bei Dao says, "He [Arafat] too
is a man who knows how to use metaphors. ... Sharon's language is blunt and
straightforward, like that of a tank."
Selgado causes controversy within the group and in Israel when he publicly
declares, "I say that the Palestinians are living in a concentration camp
situation," upon seeing the destroyed homes in Rafah and the sprawling
Jews-only settlements that have been illegally developed in the Palestinian
territories. An elderly, gruff-voiced Israeli patiently explains to Selgado
that comparisons of the way Palestinians experience occupation to the ways
Jews were treated in Germany during WWII "shuts the ears of Israelis,"
echoing what Israeli-American filmmaker B.Z. Goldberg tells Palestinian
filmmaker Hany Abu Assad in Assad's film Ford Transit.
Like he earlier wrote on the pad that the group of writers was there "for
the recollection of the collapsed zones of language," Christian Salmon
explains that the discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is riddled
with "stupid associations" and this is why writers are necessary, "to make
other voices heard," and to act as "a force of interpretation."
One of the voices heard loud and clear is that of a man whose trees were
torn up by Israelis in Gaza. He says, "If they destroy my house, I'll live
in a tent ... for we will never leave this land as our parents did in '48."
He adds, "Kill us, expel us, starve us, exterminate us. Whatever you do, you
will not conquer our will." He laughs at the absurdity of how an Ethiopian
Jew can come to Israel and in 24 hours have more legal rights over the land
than he, a native Palestinian, does. "This land speaks Arabic and I speak
Arabic," he says.
And although the writers don't speak Arabic, they understand the language
of an occupied landscape that, as Salmon observes, has been dissolved by the
piecemeal breakup of the territory. They understand the difference of
driving on an Israeli-only road in the West Bank, which has yellow lines on
the sides that keep settlers and soldiers from accidentally driving into a
Palestinian village, versus driving on an un-paved, torn up Palestinian road
that is controlled by Israeli soldiers that aren't necessarily known for
their charity. And little translation is needed when encountering a little
boy in Rafah, sitting on a pile of concrete rubble, matter-of-factly
stating, "This is our house."
While Writers on the Borders isn't exceptional for its formal qualities as
a film, it documents an important effort of internationally renowned writers
observing the conditions of the part of the world that exceeds anywhere else
in terms of press coverage per capita. As Russell Banks notes, despite all
the words that have been spent on the conflict, "it is evident that the
language that has been used to describe [the pain and history of the
Palestinians] has been corroded, corrupted, and diseased and needs to be
reinvented for the rest of the world to hear [the Palestinian] story."
Maureen Clare Murphy is Arts, Music, And Culture Editor for EI and graduated
from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago this May.
Related links
BY TOPIC: Festivals & Special Events Coverage -- Read the reviews of other
Chicago Palestine Film Fest selections here
3rd Annual Chicago Palestine Film Festival
BY TOPIC: Films
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