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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

5 Broken Cameras (2011)

Every story has two sides.  This documentary, which was one of the five finalists for the Academy Award  this year, tells the story of a Palestinian in the West Bank town of Bil'in.

The movie opens with the birth of Emad Burnat's fourth son.  He has bought a video camera to commemorate the event, and he begins by telling his audience how things have changed for Palestinians over the course of the lives of his four sons.  When he and his wife have their first child, there is hope for a better life for them--by the time their fourth son is born, they are confined to the West Bank, and watch as the Israelis encroach upon their land in the name of building a 'safety barrier' around a new settlement.

The settlers try to take more land, the Palestinians try to maintain their land.  The film is told from one point of view, but it is very hard to sympathize with the settlers.  It is just very painful to watch.  The Israeli soldiers are not portrayed as bad people, the Palestinians are definitely trying to fight back in a non-violent, overwhelm them with numbers sort of protest, but it is hard not to sympathize with the people who want to pick their olives and keep their arable land.

The name of the film comes from the number of cameras that it took to film it from start to finish.  The first camera is shot, at the same time that one of the protestors is shot as well.  You can see why Israel would not be particularly supportive of the film being made--it shows Palestinians as people that you can relate to.  They seem nice.  They appear to share values with us.  The movie quietly but emphatically argues, in it's own way, that a solution needs to be found, so that these people can raise their families in peace.  Now we know that not all Palestinians want peace, but this film shows that those people do exist.

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