Under the gun

>> The documentary Promises offers a unique perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

by MATTHEW HAYS

Who knew a social-issue documentary would unseat Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a film festival audience-award winner? But at the Rotterdam Film Fest this year, Promises, an original take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, did just that, outstripping the Ang Lee Oscar-winner.

And that was merely the world premiere of Promises. The film offers a unique take on the MIdeast conflict, featuring extensive interviews with a cross-section of Israeli and Palestinian children, prompting standing ovations at over 30 international fests, winning awards at Munich, Jerusalem, Locarno, Vancouver and San Francisco, as well as Rotterdam.



Child's play

Watching the film, it isn't hard to see what all the fuss is about. The Berkeley-based filmmaking team of Justine Shapiro, B.Z. Goldberg and Carlos Bolado go well beyond the nightly news clips we're used to, delving into the depths of hatred felt between the two camps. The children espouse views that are often startling, simply for the fact that they're so very adult. Alternately naïve and sinister, the children reflect the emotional fallout resulting from decades of unrest in the region. A plea for peace, an informative as well as emotional experience, Promises stands as a film which evokes the polar-opposite feelings of hope and despair at once. It is to the filmmakers' credit that they embrace this contradiction, constantly exploring it through their conversations with the children.

Shapiro, a filmmaker and host of the travel TV show Lonely Planet, says the inspiration for the film came six years ago while she was visiting Israel. "I consistently found myself in situations with young Israeli and Palestinian children that surprised me," says Shapiro, on the line from her Berkeley home. "I asked my Israeli cousins if they had any Palestinian friends and they looked at me in shocked disbelief. They couldn't conceive of the idea, they thought I was crazy. I had never before realized how distant these two groups were kept apart. Really, their view of Palestinians is largely how we see them in North America, made up by images in the news."

Shapiro reports similar views from the Palestinian side, but her experience proved a bit different after posing the question. "Separated from having Jewish friends, they couldn't believe I was Jewish. They were confused. I didn't look like the demon Jew they were led to believe Jews looked like." After telling one Palestinian girl that she was Jewish, Shapiro was sorrowed when the girl spat into the ground and walked away, unable to digest Shapiro's revelation about her background.

"It struck me that there were no films about young people's views," says Shapiro. "I didn't want them to be depicted as victims, which is how children are so often represented in terms of war, simply one-dimensional. I wanted to capture these views on film."

Shapiro then approached Goldberg, who had a different idea for a film in mind. "B.Z. wanted to make a film about shamanism and schizophrenia," Shapiro says, "so I had to convince him this was the movie to make." As the two discussed the project, his role became clearer. Having grown up in Israel and having worked as a journalist during the Intifada, Goldberg would narrate the film, lending it a narrative thread and giving it a first-person perspective. "We definitely wanted to avoid any sense of objective filmmaking," says Shapiro. "At the same time, we didn't want him buffering the kids. We wanted their views to be clear, up front and centre. This was one of the toughest parts of making the film. And we didn't want any bias, one way or the other." Helping to create the sense of balance imperative to the film's success was filmmaker and editor Bolado, a Mexican who edited Like Water for Chocolate. Shapiro says that during the three-year shooting period, Goldberg often argued the Israeli side, while Bolado identified with the Palestinians. Shapiro became an unofficial referee. The result is a film that has been praised for its balance, from both Arab and Israeli newspapers, both right and left.



Keys to peace

The children are revelations, describing their fears, hopes and hatred for the other side. (Indeed, Michael Apted's famous serial documentary 7 Up films spring to mind.) Faraj shows us the key he still has to his grandparents' home, which was destroyed during the '48 war (he intends to return and rebuild some day.) Sanabel tells us about her father, who's been held in an Israeli prison without formal charges for years. Moishe, a young Israeli, explains how he feels no contradiction between his religious beliefs and military service, saying he hopes to become the first religious chief of staff. And running throughout is the hatred, clearly lessons learned from parents and elders, echoed in the intensely sad words of the children. Moishe admits that "If I could decide the future, I would make all the Arabs fly away." Mahmoud, meanwhile, declares, "The more Jews we kill, the fewer there will be."

The film also has lighter moments, though, moments that were imperative to include, giving Promises an entire other dimension. One little girl struggles to separate two stacked chairs as she discusses her aspirations. It's one of those hilarious moments only ever captured in a doc film. And when two boys, one Arab and one Israeli, meet up in the street, they can't make eye contact. Instead, they burst into an impromptu belching contest.

During the first half of Promises, the filmmakers allow the children's thoughts to unfold, at times awkwardly, at other times eloquently. Then they take the next step, one which supplies the film's arc: they facilitate more extensive contact between the Mideast's two solitudes.

And this is where Promises evokes hope in its most extreme form. Goldberg talks to Mahmoud and tells him that he himself is in fact Jewish. Mahmoud simply cannot accept Goldberg's declaration, saying, "You are not an authentic Jew." After some discussion, the children agree to connect (though a couple of Israeli parents look a bit nervous about it), and some Israeli children venture to an Arab section of Jerusalem to meet up.

Initial mistrust is broken down, and the children are soon laughing and playfighting as one expects the under-10 set to. It feels uplifting, but the filmmakers are smart enough not to try and make it seem that easy. During one discussion, Mahmoud breaks down in tears, expressing his fears about the future. The filmmakers will leave, he says, and the Arab and Israeli children will simply lose touch. Things will go back to the way they were, the two sides left unattached and poised for further conflict.



Checkpoints and roadblocks

A fairly prescient statement, as it turns out. The filmmakers returned to interview the children about two years after that meeting, and indeed found that the children had lost touch. Getting through checkpoints made their meeting up difficult, and the barriers in Israel and the occupied territories proved too great for their fledgling friendships to overcome. Shapiro says that part of their goal with the film was to show just how divisive the roadblocks have been. "A number of people who've seen the film came up to me and said they didn't even know what a checkpoint was until they'd seen Promises," she says.

And the film itself, of course, has taken on new resonance in a post-9/11 world, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is seen as a major part of the Arab world's grievances with the West. Amazingly, the filmmakers began the project and filmed during a two-year period of relative peace. In fact, Shapiro says they were worried discussion of a bus bombing by one of the children would seem passé and almost cut it from the film. "We talked about it, but then decided to leave it in. This isn't over, was our feeling at the time."

And it wasn't. Shapiro lays at least some of the blame for the ongoing mess on journalists themselves, who, she argues, withdrew from the region after the Oslo accord. "After Oslo, not a single Palestinian said there was peace. In fact, many said it was the worst thing that ever happened, because people stopped paying attention. Settlements grew, the economy declined and many felt that Arafat's government was, and is, corrupt. The latest Intifada didn't come as a surprise at all."

Promises has opened so many audience minds and left people feeling so much more informed, there is now a movement to have it screened in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) as well as in the U.S. Congress.

Which raises the question: can a movie change the world?

"I don't know," says Shapiro, hesitating. "Bombs have a much more immediate effect. Opening hearts and creating awareness is much slower. But if there are more films like Promises, perhaps, bit by bit, awareness will grow.

"Since September 11, people's hearts are very closed. People aren't that open to seeing the enemy in a different light. People are freaked, they're scared.

"But when next reading a report in The New York Times and comng across the inevitable stereotype, perhaps they can question it because of the people they met in Promises." :