Paradise Now

Movie
German title	Paradise Now
Original title	al-Janna al-an /الجنة الآن
Country of production	Palestinian Territories , Netherlands , Israel , Germany , France
original language	Arabic
Publishing year	2004
length	90 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12 ; JMK 12
Rod
Director	Hany Abu-Assad
script	Hany Abu-Assad , ; Bero Beyer
production	Bero Beyer , Gerhard Meixner , Roman Paul , Hengameh Panahi , Amir Harel
music	Jina Sumedi
camera	Antoine Héberlé
cut	Sander Vos
occupation
	Kais Nashef : Said; Ali Suliman : Khaled; Lubna Azabal : Suha; Amer Hlehel : Jamal; Hiam Abbass : Said's mother; Ashraf Barchoum : Abu Karem;

Paradise Now (engl. Paradise - paradise now - right now) is a movie of the Palestinian-Dutch director Hany Abu-Assad , who in 2004 the West Bank was shot. The film started in German cinemas on September 29, 2005.

He tells the story of two young Palestinian suicide bombers . The film title refers to the promise to come to paradise for the deed .

action

The two friends Khaled and Said are sent to Israel as suicide bombers of a terrorist organization (unnamed in the film) . The first attempt to strike fails. Before it comes to a second, the two have time to think about what they are doing. With Khaled, doubts about the correctness of what he was doing grow bigger and bigger, while Said's determination grows. Said's father was liquidated as a " collaborator " by a Palestinian terrorist organization , making the desire to restore family honor the motive for his actions. The love of the human rights activist Suha, who stands for peaceful conflict resolution, cannot dissuade him from making up his mind. The film suggests that Suha, who does not live in the Palestinian territories, has no idea of the conditions there, so that her arguments do not seem to be valid to the main actors. The film ends with a scene showing Said in a bus with an emotionless expression on his face, followed by a white light. Whether or not Said detonated the bomb remains open and is left to the viewer's interpretation.

Film language

The film wants to portray the assassins neither as heroes nor as monsters, but as likeable people with doubts and fears who have to make a decision about life or death. They are not portrayed as fanatics, but as recruits from a murderous hopelessness ( Frankfurter Rundschau ).

The film largely dispenses with music and background noise. Close-ups and detailed shots of faces and changes of gaze illustrate the emotions of the people lying below the surface.

The scenes set in Israel are bathed in a bright, sharply contoured light that is intended to symbolize the hostile environment for Palestinians and at the same time the transition between life and death.

The common meal on the evening before the planned attack has a clear symbolic reference to the Christian Lord's Supper .

The film avoids obvious judgments, but criticism of the “marketing” of the assassins becomes clear. In one scene, a video message from the assassins is recorded, which is later to be used for propaganda purposes. The camera fails and the recording has to be repeated several times, with the bread prepared by Said's mother being consumed in between, and finally, instead of reading a standard manifest for the third time, a final recommendation is made to buy cheap water filters. It also becomes clear that there are not only "martyr videos", but also those in which alleged collaborators have to admit their wrongdoings before they are killed by their own people. Ironically, retailers of both videos get higher prices on the latter.

criticism

A press release by Amnesty International (AI) said about the film: A little story about a major conflict - moral but not moralizing, touching but not sentimental. A film that forces discussion without being instructive.

The director: This film is not about the victims. He focuses on the stories of the suicide bombers who otherwise remain anonymous .

There was heavy criticism of the film, including calls for a boycott. Some critics believe that the problem is being played down and that the political background is inadequately addressed. It is also criticized that it is not clear that it is immoral to murder innocents. Even Suha does not condemn the terrorist attacks morally, but only regards them as the tactically wrong means. Therefore, the film is ultimately nothing more than propaganda for suicides. Such a view is supported, for example, by Said's emotional speech in which he asks his commander for a second chance for his attack. It is felt to be trivializing, for example, that on the one hand it is shown how Said spares an Israeli child in a bus, which is supposed to portray him as compassionate, but on the other hand the murder attempt itself - i.e. the depiction of dead people, severed body parts, etc. - is not shown . Instead, after a shot of Said's eyes, the film fades to a white screen. The film gives the perpetrators a face that is too human and thus adopts the perpetrator and not the victim's perspective. One can, however, argue that the assassins, who allow themselves to be instrumentalized for political purposes because of their perceived poor living conditions, are victims as well as their families. The director himself said on the occasion of the Berlinale “But I'm not condemning the suicide bombers. For me it's a very human reaction to an extreme situation. "

The Potsdam film scholar Tobias Ebbrecht sees a connection between the films Der Untergang and Paradise Now , both of which are awarded by Eichinger's Constantin Film . He says both enabled German audiences to see those who killed Jews or plan to do so - secretaries and common soldiers in the case of Downfall - good-looking young Palestinians in the case of Paradise Now - in the role of victims . Some would be portrayed as the real victims of Hitler, others as the victims of the circumstances. He assumes that the German audience, who won the audience award in Berlin for the film, has a “fascination with the subject of the film” and thus a secret joy in Palestinian violence against Israelis.

The critic Lars Thoma, on the other hand, praises the excellent performance of the leading actors Ali Suliman, Kais Nashef and Lubna Azabal. He also considers the drama to be convincing from an artistic point of view, especially since it recurs on the medium of film itself on some occasions, for example in a scene in which Said mentions the destruction of a cinema as part of a protest. The title of the film could be understood as a reference to the anti-war film par excellence, Francis Ford Coppola's " Apocalypse Now ". In "Paradise Now" people would be sent to a slightly pointless mission, which - in this case, in the truest sense of the word - a suicide mission is.

financing

In autumn 2004, the Berlin International Film Festival and the German Federal Cultural Foundation founded the World Cinema Fund in collaboration with the Goethe Institute . This fund is intended to support projects that do not have funding from the film industry. In addition, these projects have to deal with regionally important topics. The film Paradise Now is the first project to be supported by this fund.

Awards

Paradise Now was one of the favorites to win the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 78th Academy Awards, but was beaten by the South African entry Tsotsi . At the Golden Globe Awards 2006 , which was presented on January 16, 2006 , the drama was recognized as the official Palestinian contribution with the prize for the best foreign language film. In addition, Hany Abu-Assad's fifth directorial work won the National Board of Review Award , the European Film Prize for Best Screenplay, and was awarded the Amnesty International Film Prize at the Berlinale in 2005, among other things . At the US Independent Spirit Awards the day before the Oscar ceremony, Paradise Now again prevailed as the best foreign production against the German- Turkish contribution Gegen die Wand by Fatih Akın .