Five Broken Cameras: The Yes and The No

Today in the institute we screened “Five Broken Cameras”. I did not have much ideas about the movie beforehand, I just knew that it was nominated for an Oscar and that it did not get.

I knew this little information because last week I was writing narration for a reuters report that covered the movie. They interviewed the director and he mentioned that his co-director was an Israeli who sympathized with people of Bil’in as they protested peacefully against the construction of the apartheid wall. 

 

Some film Festivals (for example: in Morocco) did not accept the screening of the documentary . It is boycotted because the producer was an Israeli.

 

So after we watched it , here is what I think:
It was boring at some points \ the narration was monotonous and sometimes a bit boring \  yet the same narration was splendid and it helped us feel and imagine the things that we were told.

 

The frames were not professional, but hay, this very guy was not the most comfortable camera man on earth, he lost five cameras already!

 

It actually stunned me how he could keep filming all the time, when the soldiers came over to him and yelled at him for filming them, or when the protestors were raided by gas bombs and even actual bullets. He did not stop filming even when his friend got shot neither when the Israelis came to his house at night to arrest him.

 

I hope that I will have this patience and courage to keep filming. I just know, that the best shots are taken when most cameramen are bored ,,,, yet the good ones are always ready.

 

The movie’s content was good and neatly arranged in a chronological manner that would look appealing to both, the Arabian and the foreign spectators.

 

Now the big No: I don’t believe in peaceful demonstration. I know this might sound ‘’terrorist’’ but come on, after sixty something years of combating with the Israeli occupation we have learned that ‘’peaceful demonstration’’ is  crap. Or maybe a luxury that we can’t afford.

 

Don’t get me wrong, who wants to get shot while protesting? But those things apply for people who are living a conflict way much simpler than the Palestinian\Israeli conflict. I think, the movie wanted to subtly deliver to the audience the fact that “5 years of peaceful protests did not stop the wall from slicing Bilin’’. It is in vain.

 

The Big Yes: Watch the embedded movie. It is about a screening in Israel where young Israelis were invited to watch the documentary. Listen to their comments, look at their faces and sighs!! I did not even think that it was possible, but they were genuinely moved by the movie!

 

No, I am not going to give a discourse of ‘’peace love and unity between bla bla bla’’ No, I won’t. But I just want to write down this feeling. But if we put aside the fact that I want them out of our land, I felt a human connection with them.

 

I will write a post soon about a book am reading. It is about Hebrew poetry. It just made me realize how we can’t see them as ‘’people’’, we can’t feel that Hebrew is anything but noisy gibberish. We are designed this way. Both sides.

 

I just don’t know how to wrap up a messed piece as this one, but there is some thinking, reading and wondering that I need to make.