PALESTINIAN FILM FESTIVAL: Not a lot is revealed is this frustratingly inert drama. Chronicling the final moments of a married couple of few words in their eastern Jerusalem enclave before they voluntarily relocate to Paris, writer/director Tawfik Abu Wael creates mood and a modicum of tension through languid passages of often silent drama. But ultimately, no one – neither audiences nor characters – emerges any the wiser.
our two leads are very hard to empathise with
A dreamy prologue in which female lead Nour (Lana Haj Yahia) seeks out a doctor to perform an abortion sets the tone and pace of Abu Wael’s directorial style. Nour glides through the hospital hallways with a haughty air; so ambivalent is her manner, it’s a complete shock when she confesses to a doctor – who will later become her husband Iyad (Ali Bardani) – that she requires a termination. He won’t do it, but oddly he decides to take her to a surgeon who will; the film fades out as they’re taken into custody en route by an Israeli checkpoint soldier.
Jumping three years ahead, the couple are packing boxes for a big move to France. Their marriage is brittle; she, now an actress on the verge of big things, is about to score a major part in a play being directed by her lover (why she is auditioning for lead roles while prepping for an international move is never explained), while he is as unhealthily committed to his hospital job as ever. On their way to the airport, he receives a call that informs him of a bad bus crash and he decides to postpone the move for a couple of days to help the hospital cope.
So sets in motion a journey over 48 hours or so following the two wealthy but unhappy people sever ties with the old world while reaffirming bonds to their birthplace. These are particularly trying scenes for the simple fact that our two leads are very hard to empathise with. No specific reason is given for their decision to relocate; self-obsessed to a fault, they seem to live comfortably in the cradle of the creative community. (Nour’s artist mother, played by Huda Al Iman, is even more gratingly self-focussed.) Lana Haj Yahia’s Nour, in particular, is utterly impossible to fathom, her soulful (read: blank) stare and general indifference to casual immorality and marital trauma helping to create one of the most unlikable characters I’ve encountered in some time.
Apart from the run-in with the IDF troops and the omnipresent concrete wall that shadows their existence, Abu Wael makes very little of the Israeli occupation. (Domestic audiences may draw more from any subtleties the film presents, but few were apparent to me.) Abu Wael creates a flavoursome portrait of the city and its people with interstitial scenes of life for the everyman, perhaps a comment against the lead’s decision to leave what seems a vibrant, if self-contained, culture.
