I got a chance to preview the documentary "Arna's Children" last month, before surgery. The film's promoters have set up a blog, with info on showtimes and more.
Lawrence of Cyberia alerted me to Arna's story - it's unbelievable. A Sabra Jew who fought in the Israeli resistance to found the state of Israel, she later married a Communist Palestinian and began working for justice in Palestine. In the 1980s she founded and ran a theater for children in the Jenin refugee camp. The film shows her directing and inciting the children through rehearsals and performances, to wild applause. Later she contracts cancer, and returns to Jenin at the end of her life to see her old friends among the Palestinians.
Then the film picks up with her son, Juliano Mer-Khamis (son of an Arab father, remember, but clearly raised an Israeli), who first goes back to the camp to direct the kids, and then after a five year hiatus, returns. His mother is dead. It is 2002, the Israeli is invading Jenin to strong resistance. We discover that some of the same children we saw cavorting and laughing in costume have grown up to become suicide bombers; one is shown actively fighting the Israelis as they roll through the camp; two others have kept their heads down and are just surviving as best they can.
This film will not change too many people's minds about Palestinians and Israelis. There's a strange double vision, as when you look at one of those black-and-white drawings that could be either an old hag with a big nose or a young woman in a hood. The children could either be miniature terrorists in the making, or powerful human beings full of life.
A person who fears Palestinians could watch Arna's Children and say "see? You can't change these people. They're terrorists!"
A person who fears Israelis could watch the same film and say "see? All this talk of peace and reconciliation, this theater and psychological jabber - they still come and destroy us!"
The Dove sees a woman of great passion and valor - Arna dying of cancer, standing in the rain on a road near a checkpoint, shouting in protest against the occupation, waving a sign, walking up and down the line of protesters, her face protected from the elements by a checked kaffiyeh.
It's absolutely true that all the theater programs in the world won't prevent violence. The question I asked watching the film was- what good was any of the violence? The Israeli destruction of a boy's house - his neighbor's house was targeted but his collapsed too. The suicide bombers' attack on a suburban street in Israel - the innocent always die for the sins of their leaders. The Dove sees that all of it is a waste, a tragedy.
Did Arna's theater make a difference? I don't know. But the documentary is an important witness to the work of one passionate woman, and the love she found in the community of her putative enemies.
Arna's work is an example of that light that shines in the darkness - however small, it is light, and it can draw more light to it. I'm so grateful her son made a film so that what she did would not die under the rubble of Jenin camp. I'm so grateful that he put young Palestinians onto film, letting us see the human beings behind the caricatures.
Arna's Children will be shown at the SF Arab Film Festival. See the Arna's Children site for more info on showtimes around the USA.
Hardly anybody gets to see the best movies made every year. Movies with heart, soul, real emotion. At the Spiritual Cinema Circle, we go to dozens of film festivals every year to find great movies that will never make it to your local theater or video store. If you liked Whalerider, Field of Dreams, and The Matrix then you're going to love the undiscovered treasures the Spiritual Cinema Circle finds for you. Bryian. Visit us at http://www.Spiritual-Movies.com
Posted by: Family Movie | October 20, 2004 at 09:50 AM