BETHLEHEM

This tense taut thriller is about yet another deadly incident in the ongoing struggle in the Middle East and was  written by a former Israeli Secret Agent and a Palestinian journalist.  Yet despite its bipartisan credentials the overwhelming feeling that you come away after watching 'Bethlehem' is that the world is split into different camps of goodies and baddies, and you are left with no doubt who is which.

Razi is an Agent for Shabak, Israel's most elite Security Force, and he has somehow managed to coerce Sanfur a 15 year-old Palestinian to spy on his own family. Sanfur's older sibling Ibrahim is a notorious terrorist who leads a rogue group called the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who are intent on wreaking havoc and killing as many Israelis as possible.  For the past two years Razi and Sanfur have bonded like surrogate father and son and have been keeping a track on Ibrahim's activities. Sanfur provides information and in return Razi plies him with money and little luxuries like an expensive pair of jeans of a new cellphone.

However now Sanfur is now restless and wants to prove himself to the rough gang of gun-toting thugs that he hangs about with. He is provoked by them to do dumb things like letting them take aim at him to test out how effective a bullet proof vest is.  It turns out that it isnt .... bullet proof that is ... and the boy ends up in hospital in Jerusalem having the bullet removed and then being stitched up.   At the same time there is a bomb explosion in the city which kills a dozen people and when Ibrahim issues a Statement claiming responsibility, Razi knows he must lean hard on his young informant to discover his brother's hiding place.

Things get a lot hotter when  Israeli Intelligence get wind that Hamas is trying to send much needed funds to Ibrahim via Sanfur who is to act as the courier.  Razi goes against his bosses orders and ensures that instead Sanfur is safely out of harms way, so when they do the set a trap he will not be caught.  This may save the boy's life but when Ibrahim is killed in the process, Sanfur is so enraged and that he is also been made to be complicit in the killing, he wants to avenge his brothers death. It is obvious then that this is not going to end well for anyone.

Throughout it all Razi is shown as a man of impeccable honor and flawless morals and shines out like a beacon that is almost too good to be true compared to his aggressive revengeful fellow Agents who will stop at nothing to impose their will.  And at the other extreme all the Palestinians however are, without exception, portrayed as a bunch of fanatical, sociopathetic, bloodthirsty scheming killers. 

Despite this somewhat ludicrous unbalanced representation of the two sides, it is still,as a piece of fiction, an exceptionally good movie. The pace is fast and the tension never lets up, and the mere fact that a boy as young as Sanfur is dragged into brutality and sheer hatred without hesitation adds an uncurrent of hopelessness and despair which somehow engages one attention even if it is for all the wrong reasons.  The Israelis must have liked it too, as it was their Official Nomination for the Best Foreign Picture Academy Award this year.

★★★★★★★★

THE LAW IN THESE PARTS

I am convinced that I will never ever be able to get a total grip on the complex realities of the continuing tribulations with Israel and the Occupying territories as much as I try.   And try I do ... and typically with me my chosen method is through the medium of film, and so  seized at the opportunity of watching Israeli filmmaker Ra’anan Alexandrowicz's award-winning incisive investigation into the legal system that is the Law in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

He interviews only the high-ranking military lawyers and judges who not helped to create and refine the laws, but then they were the ones who enforced them onto a reluctant civilian population. As the Occupying Forces they were very quick to point out that they have stuck rigidly to both the Geneva and the Hague International Conventions on War to create  the new Laws.  However when Palestinian residents, whose land had been forcibly taken, then took their cases to the Israeli Supreme Court and won, the Military Authorities simply ignored the rulings one way or another.

Some decades into the conflict and the Israelis had supplanted some half a million Jewish settlers permanently in the Occupied Territories, and Palestinian residents were still being arrested tortured and prosecuted, although rarely found guilty of any felonies. It was obvious by then that there were two distinctly different sets of the Rule of Law for the two different peoples living side by side, but each is administered by the same Authorities.

The argument that Alexandrowicz makes, and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, is very forceful and is simply that Justice and the Occupation are totally incompatible.

The film is totally riveting and dramatically staged with each of the interviewees sat at a desk on stage in front a giant green screen where footage of whatever incident/case they are discussing is played in the background.  Off screen Alexandrowicz is a courteous questioner as he takes each of his subjects through the cases they dealt with.  What is equally striking is the honesty of these now elderly men, and even though they may not give the answers one would have wished to hear, they are given with sincerity and candour (albeit the latter maybe a tad restrained at times).

Am I any closer to any understanding?  I would say a little, as the movie documented it all factual and without emotion.  And his message at the end was a very persuasive argument, in that when the Law is used to prop up power, and not constrain it as it is meant too, then it really loses its meaning.

★★★★★★★★