A Number Zero

Forget Gallup and MORI. If you want street-level public opinion in Palestine, try the Bethlehem barbershop featured in Andoni's exceptional observational documentary. For the men of all ages who spend their days there, existence is permanently circumscribed and beyond their ability to change. Facing an endemic lack of work and security and shrinking political and geographical expectations - in short the systematic strangulation of a people and culture - the outlook is bleak for a people whose life, in their own words, 'is over'. But there's a fierce gallows humour to the confessions and, to contextualise the current hardships, the film is scored to the traditional melancholy sounds of the oud.