Palestine 36 and The Voice of Hind Rajab
Palestine 36
Life for Palestinians under occupation has always been precarious and vexing, cursed with oppressive officialdom, inspections, round-ups and raids. Not just now, but 90 years ago too.
Now the tormentors are Israeli. Then they were British. This is the setting for the award-winning film Palestine 36, by Palestinian film maker Annemarie Jacir.
After the First World War, the former middle eastern territories of the defeated Turkish Ottoman Empire were grabbed by Britain and France, which were granted a mandate to govern them by the League of Nations, forerunner to the UN.
These mandates were effectively colonies. But where others were eventually steered to independence, Palestine was set up to be ruled by others – Jewish settlers from Europe, who changed the name to Israel.
Jews feature only subtly in the film. There are glimpses of their hilltop settlements, and scenes of Palestinians being terrorised on their land. But the villains of the film are the British – the originators of the conflict.
The main narrative of the film is the Palestine uprising of 1936-39, which was brutally put down. There are violent scenes. But the film focuses as well on the internal conflicts among Palestinians over how best to resist, from cooperation to revolution. That is drama too.
Palestine 36 is bilingual in English and Arabic and the actors play their native nationalities. It has won a bucketful of awards – though has not been nominated for an Oscar.
The voice of Hind Rajab
Another powerful film, released in January, is The Voice of Hind Rajab directed by Kaouther Ben Hania. The actual voice of the five-year-old Gazan whose murder outraged and distressed the world is used in the film.
She’s stranded and trapped in the family car after all others in it – her aunt, uncle and cousin – were killed by Israeli tank fire
Over a mobile she calls to be rescued by the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance service, for hours pleading with increasing desperation with the call handlers who are based in the West Bank’s Ramallah and are bound by an unbearably convoluted Israeli-controlled system for dispatching emergency services.
Ambulances require permission from layers of Israeli bureaucracy to move – without that they would just be shot. The call handlers know this and Rajab tells them there is a tank sitting next to the car. It takes five excruciating hours to get clearance from less than a kilometre away.
We see the GPS route. The crew sees the car. Then, as the ambulance pulls alongside, we hear over Rajab’s phone the actual explosion of tank fire. The phone goes dead, The workers in the call centre freeze. The bodies of Hind and her family were found along with the burnt-out ambulance nearby and two paramedics killed inside.
As the film closed, the 200-strong audience were stunned into silence
As the film closed, the 200-strong audience were stunned into silence. People sat motionless through the credits.
Even as the director came on stage for a Q&A it felt impossible to applaud the story we had just witnessed, and which would haunt us for years.
