Divine Intervention
Film Review
by Liam Scheff
Boston’s Weekly Dig June 2003
No one’s ever cared much about Palestinians, so it’s not surprising that Elia Suleiman’s artful Palestinian film Divine Intervention was refused acceptance into this year’s Academy Awards.
But don’t blame the Oscar committee. From Colonial Britain to Imperial America, Palestinians have always been regarded as a nuisance and a bother.
In 1917 Britain’s Lord Balfour decreed that Palestine be re-designated as the Zionist homeland, “be it right or wrong, good or bad,” and regardless of the “desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs” who were already living there.
In 1937 Winston Churchill put it more plainly. After British soldiers crushed the first Palestinian uprising against Jewish settlers, Churchill said of the Palestinians:
“I do not agree that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”
In 1947 the UN gave 55 percent of Palestine to the Zionists to form the new Israeli state. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the UN’s mandate, and the UN has refused to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state ever since.
It was on this basis—UN-designated statehood—that the Oscar committee gave Divine Intervention the boot—even though it won the Grand Jury and Critic’s Prizes at Cannes.
As for the movie, it’s a masterful, measured, maddening look out from inside the occupied mind. We’re thrust into a world inhabited by belligerent Arab neighbors, abusive checkpoint guards and lovers who aren’t permitted to enter each other’s land.
With precise technique and deliberate timing, Suleiman exposes the slow-burning madness that infects ordinary citizens whose very existence is treated as a criminal act.
The film takes off into fantasy sequences at several points; an errant nectarine pit explodes an Israeli tank; a shooting range target of a Palestinian woman comes alive to exact Hong Kong-style martial arts revenge.
These scenes have raised concerns about anti-Israeli sentiment. I don’t think Divine Intervention is anti-Israeli or anti-Israel. It is, however, anti-occupation, as are a great many Israelis and Jews worldwide.
Divine Intervention is a note to the world from a people the world ignores. The note says, simply, “We’re here, too.”
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Avatar Films, the film’s US distributor, is currently working to get Divine Intervention accepted as Palestine’s entry for the 2004 Academy Awards.
Recent Avatar releases include Benoit Jacquot’s acclaimed production of Puccini’s Tosca as well as the award-winning Afghani film Kandahar , on video this May. For more information, go to www.avatarfilms.com -Liam Scheff
Divine Intervention. Directed by Elia Suleiman; Featuring Manal Khader, Elia Suleiman
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