Dynamics and Experiences of the Palestinian - Israeli Conflict, 1948-1991
Gelvin, 230-244.
Alon Confino, "The Warm Sand of the Coast of Tantura: History and Memory in Israel after 1948," in History and Memory, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2015), 43-82.
Helga Tawil-Souri, “Cinema as the Space to Transgress Palestine’s Territorial Trap,” in Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 7 (2014), 169-189.
[for Tawil-Souri's piece, do not dwell on the numerous film examples she gives; instead, just try to understand the theoretical concepts put forth. For example, how does the Palestinian experience reflect notions mobility and immobility, and how is this reflected in the genre of Palestinian cinema?]
Film: The Time that Remains (Elia Suleiman, 2009)
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Recommended Reading:
Jonathan Freedland, “The Liberal Zionism after Gaza,” The New York Review of Books Blog, July 26, 2014.
Edo Konrad, “The roots of anti-Mizrahi racism in Israel,” +972 Magazine, December 2, 2015
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Prompts for Reading Response:
During our third class session, we learned about settler colonialism, a distinct type of colonialism that functions through the replacement of indigenous populations with an outside settler society that, over time, develops a distinctive national identity and sovereignty while attempting to erase that of the native. How does Alon Confino tell us a story of what settler colonialism looks like or feels like? How does Elia Suleiman tell a similar (or different) story?
Or...
According to Helga Tawil-Souri, what is the Palestinian “structure of feeling”? How is this reflected in the genre of Palestinian cinema, and specifically within The Time That Remains? What filmic or narrative devices does Sulieman use to construct this particular "structure of feeling"?
(For example, what do you think is the significance of silence in the film? What is meant by the title of the film - "The Time that Remains: Chronicles of a Present Absentee"?)
(For example, what do you think is the significance of silence in the film? What is meant by the title of the film - "The Time that Remains: Chronicles of a Present Absentee"?)
I believe that overall when looking at the essence of the intentions of both Alon Confino and Elia Suleiman they are very similar. Both authors intend on delivering a personalized narrative of the people of their country and the emotions associated with the overall situation between Palestine and Israel. However, there are differences between the movie by Suleiman and Confino's story.
ReplyDeleteStarting off by looking at Confino's story, one of the major difference between what he wrote and what Suleiman directed and acted out is the point of view the audience is exposed to. The difference between the point of view for both authors is very drastic, while Confino provides the audience with a Jewish Israeli perspective, Suleiman provides the Palestinian Muslim one. Confino bases his story around 5 ariel photos of the coast from the years 1946, 1952, 1957, 1966, and 1976. The focus of his story is to show how the migration to Palestine took a lot of physical and mental effort from the Jewish perspective. Especially when considering the era that they have emerged from as a people. Whilst reading Confino's piece one will notice a great sense of nationalism throughout the piece, the first group of Jewish settlers who arrived on June 13th, 1948, had thoughts of nationalism the second they set foot on Tantura, because they wanted to "return to a romanticized past" (Lee, Shimrit. "Lecture 3"). They began thinking about how much Tantura has changed over time and what they need to do to shape their brand new nation into the utopian image the Jewish society has in their mind of their 'holy land'. Moreover, Confino's piece was different than Suleimans in the sense that it was less emotional, perhaps because it is not a movie. Suleiman's movie feels much more personalized to a certain extent because we get the literal emotions Palestinians go through on a day to day basis, whilst Confino mainly focused on how the new Jewish settlers are going to transform and customize their newly given land to change it into their nation.
Suleiman chooses to appeal to the nostalgic senses that he shares with his Palestinian audience/supporters, whilst simultaneously trying to gain the empathy of the general audience and not the sympathy. Suleiman uses things such as repetition as a play with time and reflects upon the hopelessness that some Palestinians feel. This ultimately is compiled with several other literary and movie techniques to create a narrative of a mutual suffering experienced by the Palestinians and a reflection of a world and life filled with pain and struggle. One major motif of "The Time That Remains" was humanism, it was almost as if Suleiman just wanted to do a good job making a good movie that not only accurately represents the Palestinian nation's struggle, but also does the Palestinian people right by showing the rest of the world what they go through and the negative effects of settler colonialism and how its effects resonate into the present and future.
Ali Soofi
ReplyDeleteTantura: A Glimpse of its History through the Eyes of the Palestinians and the Jews
Tantura, which roughly translates as “The Peak”, is a small coastal Palestinian village located a few kilometers from Israel’s Mediterranean coast. Its name may be ascribed to the hill al- Burj that sits next to the village, based on the custom of naming places through their physical or topographical features typical among the Arab nations. The magnificence of the village was one of its most enticing characteristics, along with its flourishing workforce and stable economy, with the sea providing a rich source of the people’s earnings. However, everything changed on the 23rd day of May 1948 when the Jews deliberately subjugated the small village and expelled its residents, subsequently establishing their own community Nasholim. The village experienced a dramatic change not just its landscape but also in its cultural and societal aspects. But even with these vivid changes, both the Palestinians and Jews agree on the beauty and charm of the village that they have come to be familiar with but under different circumstances.
This is exactly what Alon Confino demonstrates on his series of works documenting Tantura’s history before and after the Jewish occupation. He used five aerial photos of the village taken in 1946, 1952, 1957, 1966 and 1976, along with oral interviews and historical documents to describe in detail how the Jews introduced their own cultures and traditions to the village. According to him, the Tanturians did not just leave their houses and material things when they fled, but they left their entire life, along with their hopes and dreams that they have built in their beloved village. Distraught and unsettled, they were dispersed and struggled to find a new place where their families can settle. The Jews, on the other hand, occupied their homes and ruthlessly tried to erase the history of the village’s past inhabitants. Determined to rebuild the place on a new landscape, they aimed to completely abolish any Arabic influence on the village’s history, basically starting by assigning Hebrew names to Arab villages in the map of Israel. Along with these physical evidence, Confino also provided various documented transcription of his verbal interviews of representatives from each side. Through this, he was able to validate his findings and supplement his analyses of the aerial pictures.
Elia Suleimann, for his films, narrates similar stories by focusing on individual stories of people that it is almost biographical. His films focus on detailed experiences that establish a connection that the audience can relate to. Most of his evidence were personally collected from his father’s stories, his mother’s letters, and his friends’ recollections of the past. While shooting his films, he tends to be as realistic as possible by gathering evidence from the location of the shooting itself, from actual residents. His films usually depict Palestinian life in a light, funny and comedic way.
Amanda Gelbart
ReplyDeleteWithin Souri’s piece, she argues that Palestinian cinema can be constructed as a genre and find greater meaning by looking at it through the lens of “structure of feeling” (172). This distinction allows the audience to appreciate both “Palestine” and “national cinema” outside the realm of territory, the most commonly associated theme within these two subject matters (Souri 172). Instead, Souri argues, one can focus on the function of space and its constantly contradicting presence within the life of Palestinians (172). As quoted by Sobhi al-Zobaidi in Souri, early Palestinian films were “impulsive, passionate films, bad quality films, homemade, homegrown, and desperate” (170). This was because until then their voices were stifled and censored. The desperation and confusion on how to convey their stories therefore shines through in the non-traditional structure which attempts to reconcile the before and after, the point in which their worth changed for their nation and their home.
This notion of the “structure of feeling” particularly comes through in the film, The Time That Remains by Sulieman. The narrative follows a family whose home becomes a place of immobility while also serving as a departure point. At the beginning of the film, Fuad is trying to escape and wants to leave his home behind. He is caught by the IDF and sent back home to force him to obey the new rulings. Within his home, he remains and attempts to bring a normal, happy life to his family. However, throughout the years, he loses his son to exile and his wife to illness. By the end of the film, the audience can feel how trapped the town which he used to call home makes him feel. Yet, because of his attachments to the area, such as his wife in the hospital or the table that they always used to sit at in their home, he finds himself unable to leave. A similar sentiment is evoked from the neighbor who is constantly trying to commit suicide via kerosene. Every time Fuad comes in to stop him from committing the act, the neighbor can never even bring himself to light the cigarette. He wants to escape but knows he cannot (Sulieman).
The title of the film, The Time that Remains: The Chronicles of a Present Absentee encapsulates the notion that none of the characters can remain actively involved in their own lives. When the police arrive at Elia’s house to take away his father, he is without emotion, moving systematically throughout the house. Even the mother, when she chooses to indulge in life and eat ice cream, does so systematically, as though knowing she cannot outwardly express emotion. This once again demonstrates the “structure of feeling” Souri argues for. Many characters throughout the film seem to become more robotic as the time passes, unable to reconcile their declining freedoms and attain a sense of reality (Sulieman).
Overall, the genre of Palestinian film is a desperate attempt to construct a narrative that makes sense within a world without clear boundaries or permissions. By basing the viewpoints solely on territory or location, one fails to understand the overall picture that the artist is portraying through their lack of control. It is only through the open acceptance of contradictions and the feelings of the people that one can begin to appreciate their narrative and its true importance within the arguments of the Israel-Palestine conflict.