DIVINE INTERVENTION (Elia Suleiman, 2003)

Reviewed: January 20th, 2003

Quite well received, but I'm in the minority of people who don't find its brand of oblique, absurdist sketch humor funny or comprehensible (i.e. film opens with Santa running away from a pack of kids who soon stab him to death; film closes with a Palestinian, ninja woman deflecting bullets by spinning real fast in the air and then deflating the dancing Israeli soldiers who were shooting her). According to my press notes, the movie's about how -- in the midst of the Israel-Palestine conflict -- the Palestinians living next to the border in Israel-occupied territory are so disturbed by their situation they take their aggression out on each other in petty ways. Coulda fooled me. Truthfully, I never knew what the fuck was going on, I didn't understand what the protagonist cryptically dubbed E.S.'s (Elia Suleiman, also the film's writer/director) sick father had to do with anything or why I should care about his relationship with a cipher woman (the extent of this relationship is they sit next to each other impassively in a car in a neutral [I think] section amidst a border checkpoint, which is, of course, the only place they can meet up with each other; yes, yes, I know that is the point, but forgive me if I can't bring myself to get invested in two people who never say a word for the whole film, and only surface on occasion, when needed). I'm told Divine Intervention is pretty one-sided in favor of Palestinians (which Elia Suleiman is, obviously) but I was too confused to notice or really care. Once upon a time there were narratives that managed to be fulfilling pieces of storytelling, made political comments and yet weren't didactic. Ah yes, those were the days...

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