Rating: 3.5/5
Asian Cinema Challenge 2023 | 7/52 | Top 100 Arab Films
On the outskirts of Nazareth in Israel, Santa Claus runs from a hoard of children, his sack of toys on his back. As he runs, toys fall out of his bag. The kids ignore the toys and continue after him. He scales Mount Fear to the ruins of a Franciscan chapel before the kids corner him, stabbing Santa in the chest.
This opening tells us the tone of the rest of this movie—we will see absurd things, but underneath is the common thread of the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. This military doesn’t want a victory—they want a bloodbath.
We follow Palestinian Elia Suleiman, his father, and his girlfriend, who lives in the West Bank city of Ramallah, through a series of sketches depicting a day in their lives.
By the way, the movie’s subtitle is “A Chronicle of Love and Pain.”
I recently watched Suleiman’s It Must Be Heaven, so I was prepared for his filmmaking style. He never betrays his absurd sense of humor to “say something”—the saying is in the humor. The movie has moments of levity, but they are more heart than message.
Perhaps watching It Must Be Heaven ruined some of the surprises this movie would have, But there’s a potency here that doesn’t entirely saturate It Must Be Heaven. I think the “fuck you” to Israel is way more explicit here. Then again, as I said in my other review, I won’t pretend to understand all the jokes without better knowledge of the cultural context.
I would also hire Manal Khader to be my girlfriend, who stares at me and destroys Israeli military checkpoint towers.