Wall (Mur)
This powerful documentary looks at the nightmare of a separation fence in Israel-Palestine that imprisons one people while enclosing the other. A situation where religious and political divisions have been made concrete.
The film begins with a silent scene of Israeli workmen erecting the concrete sections of the wall. These uniformly grey wedges slowly block out the beautiful landscape that lies behind them until all we can see is grey concrete. It's an astounding, horrifying sequence - and a powerful piece of cinema.
Pitching the human-interest stories against the official Israeli anti-terror spiel, Bitton dispenses with the wider context to deliver a series of cinematic postcards: a bored Israeli teenage soldier checking ID cards; a tractor unspooling swathes of razor wire; Palestinians lifting a little baby over a deserted section of the wall. "The fence is worthless. Without peace it's worthless - it's a joke," claims one Israeli, a survivor of a suicide bomber. In contrast, the Palestinians Bitton interviews are largely shell-shocked. It's easy to understand why: dispossessed and forgotten, they've been turned into powerless observers of their own entombment.
Other films in this section:
7:15 PM , Friday 8th April
QFT
Adult £5.00, Concession £4.00
Director: Simone Bitton
2004 France Israel 96 mins
In French, Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.