![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyI went to see Bab El Chams (The Door to the Sun) last night. It's been awhile since I've gone to the theatre to see a movie -- let alone a 4.5-hour long epic historical drama. I was itching to see this movie since I heard of its existence, and it didn't remotely disappoint.
The blurb I just linked to describes it as a Palestinian Exodus, which was what I couldn't help thinking throughout the film -- particularly during the first half. It's as if the camera in Exodus slipped away into the camps of the "Arab hordes" -- the ones who got so little chance to speak their minds in Uris' novel -- to tell their half of the story.
Like Exodus (and like most other historical epics worth mentioning), Bab El Chams is long, sometimes needlessly so, and it's melodramatic. As well it should be. A few people afterwards commented that it was "too depressing," but I'm not sure how one could make a film about the Palestinian experience of dispossession from 1943 to 1994 and have it not be depressing. And it cuts no one any slack -- the Israeli army, and later government, is only one of many forces that oppress the characters -- the film makes no attempt to apologize for the actions of Arab governments, for the PLO, or for patriarchal and misogynistic structures within Palestinian society.
It had its imperfections -- the first half felt too long (one character remarks, "We lost Palestine in an instant"; it actually takes about two hours); the second half wasn't long enough and felt like an entirely different movie. Also, apparently characters from the same village had three different accents, and the Syrian actors were adopting Lebanese accents for no apparent reason. A. said that the Arabic dialogue was badly translated -- which is a pity, since one of my favourite scenes hinged entirely on the translation between Arabic and French. The French dialogue was fine as far as my rudimentary French skills could pick up.
So now I very much want to read the novel -- has anyone read it? I hear it's not available in English, although A. mentioned that if that is indeed the case, it'd be a great translation project for Al-Awda. M. said the book was far better than the movie, and it probably fleshes out some of the choppiness in the last part. There's definitely a French translation, but I doubt I could read anything that complicated in French.
On an entirely different track, do the latest rounds of justifications for killing innocent people because of their skin colour make anyone else want to let loose with an "England prevails!"?
The blurb I just linked to describes it as a Palestinian Exodus, which was what I couldn't help thinking throughout the film -- particularly during the first half. It's as if the camera in Exodus slipped away into the camps of the "Arab hordes" -- the ones who got so little chance to speak their minds in Uris' novel -- to tell their half of the story.
Like Exodus (and like most other historical epics worth mentioning), Bab El Chams is long, sometimes needlessly so, and it's melodramatic. As well it should be. A few people afterwards commented that it was "too depressing," but I'm not sure how one could make a film about the Palestinian experience of dispossession from 1943 to 1994 and have it not be depressing. And it cuts no one any slack -- the Israeli army, and later government, is only one of many forces that oppress the characters -- the film makes no attempt to apologize for the actions of Arab governments, for the PLO, or for patriarchal and misogynistic structures within Palestinian society.
It had its imperfections -- the first half felt too long (one character remarks, "We lost Palestine in an instant"; it actually takes about two hours); the second half wasn't long enough and felt like an entirely different movie. Also, apparently characters from the same village had three different accents, and the Syrian actors were adopting Lebanese accents for no apparent reason. A. said that the Arabic dialogue was badly translated -- which is a pity, since one of my favourite scenes hinged entirely on the translation between Arabic and French. The French dialogue was fine as far as my rudimentary French skills could pick up.
So now I very much want to read the novel -- has anyone read it? I hear it's not available in English, although A. mentioned that if that is indeed the case, it'd be a great translation project for Al-Awda. M. said the book was far better than the movie, and it probably fleshes out some of the choppiness in the last part. There's definitely a French translation, but I doubt I could read anything that complicated in French.
On an entirely different track, do the latest rounds of justifications for killing innocent people because of their skin colour make anyone else want to let loose with an "England prevails!"?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 07:00 pm (UTC)It's no problem, if it will make you more comfortable.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 07:52 pm (UTC)wtf? he was already pinned down. he couldn't have set off any 'bomb'.
i love how they're like "he ran from cops" when the cops were plain-clothed officers. how was he supposed to know they were cops, and not just random people pointing guns at him?!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 03:11 am (UTC)yeah, i think you're right about the zombie thing.