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Bookmark this pageParadise Now (2005)
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Movie review
From Time Out London
While the high-decibel provocations of ‘V for Vendetta’ offer cartoon catharsis for enraged citizens of the world according to Bush, this multinational co-production offers a drier, more pensive exploration of the causes of terrorism.Twentysomething friends and co-workers in Nablus, Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) are also members of an unnamed terrorist organisation that has just appointed them to a suicide operation in Tel Aviv – a seemingly straightforward mission that will make several unexpected reversals by the end of ‘Paradise Now’, which was shot on location in the West Bank under semi-siege conditions (a Palestinian faction briefly kidnapped one of the crew members).
Nazareth-born director Hany Abu-Assad previously depicted the tedium, anger and sour hilarity of life under occupation in the fictional ‘Rana’s Wedding’ and the documentary ‘Ford Transit’, a road(block) movie about a West Bank taxi driver and his rotating cast of voluble passengers, who muse on suicide-bomber psychology and the culture of victimhood. Such issues are front and centre in ‘Paradise Now’, which folds in elements of treatise, melodrama, blackest comedy, and a hint of romance – the latter facilitated by the lovely Suha (Lubna Azabal), who’s also the movie’s pacifist voice of reason.
The psychoanalysis of the schematic script is too pat, casting Said, son of a collaborator, in a semi-Oedipal drama wherein he slays the ghost of his treasonous father. Neither he not Khaled appear convincingly resolved to die for a cause or assured of any heavenly reward for their sacrifice. Still, ‘Paradise Now’ is commendable for seeking out nuance in a horrifying subject, putting terrorist acts in sorrowful context while never making excuses for them.
Author: Jessica Winter
Time Out London Issue 1860: April 12-19 2006
User reviews of this film
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- Magmabulle said...
- Posted on Jun 06 2008 22:42 An amazingly beautiful and strong movie, that succeeds in presenting a complex conflict without taking sides.
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Cast & crew
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Cast: Kais Nashef, Ali Suliman, Lubna Azabal, Amer Hlehel, Hiam Abbas, Ashraf Barhoum full cast
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: 15
Duration: 90 mins
UK Release: Apr 14 2006
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