“Battle For Haditha” Comes To British Screens

September 14, 2008 – 8:19 pm

Perhaps with the mainstream audience’s addiction to reality television and “found footage” movies such as “Cloverfield” and “Diary of the Dead,” Nick Broomfield’s recent ventures into features will finally give him the credit he richly deserves for a genre that he has been a giant in for over two decades.

His ground breaking and often controversial documentaries have been the template for an entire generation of reality drama, most keenly felt in Paul Greengrass’ work on “United 93.” Now Broomfield seems to have once again found a subject that will divide the public and tap into the collective zeitgeist of the moment.

His “Battle for Haditha” is the true story of a small engagement between a Marine patrol and two local men who have been paid 1000 dollars by al Qaeda to detonate an IED. The chaos that ensues after the explosion which kills a Marine Captain quickly develops into a massacre of the local population by the surviving Marines. In all 24 people died, but this is no crucifixion of the U.S. forces or a condemnation of the insurgents, but rather an even-sided account of one terrible day.

In fact, “Battle for Haditha” is an internal struggle of conscience for all concerned; Marines, civilians, and insurgents alike. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in entertainment, iraq, jordan, terrorism | Comments (0)

Identity. Belonging. Who Are You Really?

January 3, 2008 – 6:48 am

Conversations on identity seem to take a complicated turn more often than not, and especially in my rowdy hood.

I recently got asked a bunch of questions by someone from a past life currently writing a book that includes a chapter on creativity, cinema, Palestinian and Arab independent production among other topics. After a few emails back and forth, the writer popped the question: “Do you mind if I include you in the chapter on Palestinian (as opposed to Jordanian) cinema?” I replied that that would not be true nor accurate to me personally and professionally and proceeded to dissect my life in an email back:

“I know that you’d like my answer to be the ideal story, but to tell you the truth, it’s not.

On identity - I am Jordanian. I never felt Palestinian nor can I relate to that part of me beyond the wider family meaning. It’s not how I grew up and the lifestyle I led allowed me to look way beyond borders of origin and just be a citizen of the world who happened to be from Jordan and from a family of Palestinian origin from Nablus. I did not grow up in a home that was Palestinian at all and did not receive that kind of awareness from my Jordanian-born father and Lebanese mother as we lived in 7 different countries around the world and I attended 8 schools during 12 years, speaking four languages and learning about the religions of the world through social studies and not ‘religion’ class.

My father was a politician and I hated politics - and still do. It’s not a strategic, conscious choice about being this or that, it’s who I am and what I am as a result of my life. And that may not be good news for your angle on Palestinian identity issue/unity/origins/rights, but it is my reality and works for me, end of story.

On film, you mention that I’m probably attracted to being Jordanian and not Palestinian from my professional perspective due to the pioneering position/entrepreneurial/being first – in truth, I could care less about all that. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in entertainment, science & technology, society | Comments (2)

Notes from the Dubai International Film Festival: Things We Lost in the Fire

December 18, 2007 – 8:39 am

This is our final article on DIFF this year. Related stories are here and here.

As the festival wound down, I found myself needing an injection of Hollywood, and Susanne Bier’s “Things We Lost in the Fire” was the ticket. Well, maybe. Susanne Bier is actually Danish, and this movie is somewhat unconventional. I’m not sure if it’s going to get a wide release in the Middle East, but I’m not holding my breath.

The one consistently terrific thing about this film is Benicio Del Toro and his brand of awesome. I’m not exactly sure how he manages to take the familiar role of a recovering heroin addict and transform it into something this charming and unpretentious, but I like to think it has something to do with being charming and unpretentious in real life. Either way, this is one performance any self-respecting Del Toro fangirl or fanboy cannot possibly miss out on, no matter where you are.

The rest of the movie oscillates between genuinely grounded, thoughtful material and occasionally coma-inducing melodrama. Halle Berry’s turn as shell-shocked widow Audrey is solid, but her obligatory moment of meltdown and surrender felt as thought it could have come off a check-list. While Del Toro’s heroin withdrawal scene has similar overtones, his inventive facial contortions alone create something original to watch.

David Duchovny, the dead husband who is the link between Berry and Del Toro’s characters, has some potential, but he disappears halfway into the film. The story is fragmented (much like a grieving person’s mind - which I thought to be a nice touch overall), and Duchovny’s character is seen in flashbacks. But the flashbacks just stop all of a sudden, and the film is the poorer for it. We understand that Brian was a righteous dude unjustly taken from his family in the prime of his life, but aside from the great dynamic he has with his drug addict friend, we don’t really get to know him as a human being.

The deadpan John Carroll Lynch is a source of comic relief as a weird but good-natured neighbor, but it’s a bad sign when you realize his character is actually more likeable than Brian’s.

Bier is drawing a fascinating parallel between addiction and grief however, and she does succeed in raising serious questions about the way human beings deal with both phenomena. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in arts and literature, dubai, entertainment | Comments (0)

Notes from the Dubai International Film Festival: Captain Abu Raed

December 15, 2007 – 4:23 pm

This article is part of a series on films at DIFF 2007.

Well, the time has come to separate the best from the rest. For me, the festival peaked with the world premiere of “Captain Abu Raed” - the first Jordanian feature film in a rather long number of years.

Let me tell you, all those decades upon decades were certainly worth the wait.

Director, writer, and producer Amin Matalqa described this film as a “fable,” which is probably as close as one can get to its essence without giving too much away. The hero of the story, portrayed by veteran Nadim Sawalha (you’ve seen him everywhere from “Syriana” to “The Nativity Story” as of late), is a janitor who gets mistaken for an airline pilot on account of a hat fished out of the trash in Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport.

Abu Raed is an older man who leads a quiet life, having conversations with his dead wife’s portrait and spending his evenings with only a cup of tea for company. This is a man who had dreams once; you can still see something of them in his kind, keen gaze, alongside past calamities and defeats, all equally ground down by the thievish passage of time.

It is the exicted attention of his humble neighborhood’s children that inspires Abu Raed to assume the role of storyteller and sage; as he recounts tales of the fictional adventures of the man he might have been, we discover that the man he is is not a whole lot different. Abu Raed can still be a hero, janitor’s uniform and all.

Thanks to the editing of obscenely young Laith Majali (who is also one of the producers) and the brilliant cinematography of Reinhart Peschke, the movie has a lush, gorgeous look: the light alternates between laving like honey and casting inky shadows on faces and streets. The city of Amman exists as a separate character here, a living landscape transversed with human lives.

This is a family-friendly (I hate that horrible adjective, but there it is) film that nevertheless deals with the darker side of life. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in arts and literature, dubai, entertainment, jordan | Comments (8)

Notes from the Dubai International Film Festival: The Battle for Haditha

December 13, 2007 – 7:41 am

This article is part of a series on various films at DIFF 2007.

Nick Broomfield’s “The Battle for Haditha” has not yet gotten enough press. In some ways, this is understandable. Despite the explosive subject matter, this is a low-key film. There are no big-name actors, no enormous budget, and, most importantly, the picture’s stylistic elements tend toward a stark, bare-boned simplicity. Nevertheless, this is a film to see.

Broomfield cast many amateurs for key roles, among them some ex-Marines and Iraqi refugees, and this is both good and bad. There is a definite air of authenticity surrounding the film, yet the acting occasionally appears forced. Some of the dialogue struck me as contrived- although this may have something to do with the subtitles. I do not speak Arabic, but having been accompanied by an Arabic speaker at the screening, I discovered that the subtitles are not as good as they could have been.

This movie is earnest, but, in some scenes, it also comes across as didactic. Do we really need to see the chief insurgent character, a disgruntled former member of the Iraqi army, spelling out the message with lines such as: “The Americans created the insurgency by dis-banding the army”? Does the chief insurgent furthermore have to opine stiffly on the future of Iraq, noting (in a manner that suggests that he is channeling Fukuyama) the bleak possibility of the country inheriting a new leader, someone who will be a helluva lot worse than Saddam?

Yet in spite of a few missteps, this is a haunting picture. I can’t get it out of my head, and I probably won’t for a long time. Broomfield captures the comings and goings of the residents of Haditha, people whose lives are about to be shattered, with intimacy and grace. I was floored by the character of Rashied (Duraid A. Ghaieb), a young man besotted with his pregnant wife (Yasmine Hanani - who attended the screening alongside the director, and ex-Marine actors Elliot Ruiz and Eric Mehalacopoulos), keenly aware of the growing danger of staying with his family in Haditha, and yet unable to do much about it.

Alongside U.S. Marines and Iraqi civilians, Broomfield dares to portray the members of the Iraqi insurgency as human beings. These people are not just fundamentalist foreigners, they are also ordinary locals who are infuriated with what has happened to their country. This simple truth is about as inconvenient as anything Al Gore can come up with, and is bound to make American audiences squirm in their seats. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in arts and literature, dubai, entertainment, iraq, terrorism | Comments (3)

Motorcycle Diaries Part III

May 12, 2007 – 11:59 am

(This article was first published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine)

I’ve had it with the deceptions of the media. Perhaps my face doesn’t show it, but I am pissed-off angry. And here, for once, I’m not talking about the political side of things. I’m not talking about how docile news organizations in the West capitulated to their governments and, without a shred of resistance or an atom of intellectual integrity, accepted the barrage of blatant lies that linked Iraq to WMD’s and to Al-Qaida, thus facilitating the most unprovoked and unforgivable invasion in modern history. I’m not discussing how these misinformation organizations let their political leaders literally get away with murder of hundreds of thousands of people so that a few multinational corporations can add billions upon their trillions of ill-gotten wealth.

Let’s leave all that aside for now – along with the uncontainable mayhem coming out of the Pandora’s box that was irresponsibly opened in Iraq. In this episode of my road chronicles, I’m referring to other more mundane, yet equally irritating, aspects of the daily bombardment of lies and half-truths that I am subjected to every single day by an advertising industry gone berserk. Whether it’s when I’m out soaking up one billboard after the other, or sitting peacefully at home reading a magazine or watching TV, I am fed up with being taken for a ride. Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in entertainment, iraq | Comments (1)

Motorcycle Diaries

August 9, 2006 – 12:01 pm

(This article was originally published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine)

Forgive me, Ernesto, for helping myself to this undeserved title of which I am grossly unworthy. I ask permission not only because I’m so unlike you in that I cannot believe in a single earthly dogma for the salvation of mankind so as to dedicate my whole existence to fight and die for it.

This noble, but often blinding, human trait is only part of the abyss that demarcates your fearless soul from mine. What really sets us apart here is that my inconsequential motorcycle expeditions will not leave these pages, whereas your celebrated treks are already grand history. And so are you. From t-shirts to boxer shorts, your portrait is a cult image more recognizable than most Hollywood celebrities. Alas, the only portrait you’re likely to find of this author is a Swiss police mug-shot for some serious traffic violations, but we won’t get into that. So Comandante, you still rock! Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in christianity, entertainment, islam | Comments (0)