antipopper

The toast of Cannes, and barred from the Oscars because “Palestine is not a country”, Elia Suleiman’s Yadon Ilaheyya (Divine Intervention) lives its status as a medium — in the occult sense. It brings the sterility and absurdity of occupation into the realm of the ecological, to strange effect. Under Israeli supervision, neighbourhood planning issues turn into a disjointed series of bizarre, petty incidents. Separated by the Israeli checkpoints between Ramallah and Jerusalem, well-dressed Palestinian lovers resort to whacky, sublimated encounters in parked cars, their hands caressing, eyes averted. Everything is crisp, turtlenecks are worn, and trip-hop plays in the background. It hard to tell whether Suleiman is (a) simply making a statement about the dulling of affect under occupation, (b) overturning stereotypes about the lack of “cultural sophistication” in the Middle East (i.e. the trope of the raving barbarian buffoon), or (c) being an arch but enthusiastic blow-dried MOR stylist, like Saint Etienne. Perhaps all three. It’s quite brilliant.

But where is hope in such an allegorical ecology? There are a couple of moments where the absurdity becomes wonderfully fanciful: Suleiman’s male protagonist lets loose a red balloon, emblazoned with the face of Yasser Arafat, which drifts triumphantly over Jerusalem; and in a dreamlike interlude, Israeli gunmen at a “kill-an-Arab” shooting range are overwhelmed by the glorious figure of Palestine embodied in an Arab woman superhero, complete with bullet-time fx. These moments are beautifully rendered, but to me they feel like moments of utter desperation, of clutching for transcendent, fetishised symbols (national mythologies) from the the quagmire. And given the way these moments contrast with the mundanity of living the occupation (there is a wonderfully effective checkpoint scene, driven by an insanely arrogant Israeli soldier, that takes forever), it seems that Suleiman knows this. And this is the most melancholy thing about the film. It may not be Suleiman’s project, but how would one attempt allegorise the vibrant, underground alternatives to civil society that sprung up during the first Intifada: the secret schools, infrastructural networks, women’s collectives and strike committees? And if these things are being relegated to the past, then surely it’s partly by the very thing lurking behind transcendent national symbols: the non-civilian militarisation of petty national authority that various Palestinian leaderships (e.g. Arafat) have played into — a Zionist trap if there ever was one. Sigh.