Santa Barbara Festival: "Paradise Now" From the Director's Own Words

“Paradise Now” From the Director’s Own Words

Over the past few months, Hany Abu-Assad’s film, “Paradise Now” has been honored and excoriated simultaneously. While being nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category, winning several other awards, and enjoying critical acclaim, the controversial Palestinian film about the last 48 hours of two would-be suicide bombers and their internal struggle has ignited the debate about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

For his efforts, despite being accepted not only by the Palestinian led Hamas government, but Israel’s as well, Abu-Assad has been accused of not only being a promoter of suicide bombing by Israelis, but having too passive a stance for some of his own countrymen’s taste. He can’t seem to win.

To the contrary, he feels like he has in the form of self discovery. Prior to making the film, while understanding the struggle of his people, Abu-Assad was unsure about his feelings about the act of suicide bombing. During shooting, he got his answer.

“I learned that I am against suicide actions from all the point of views you look to it,” Abu-Assad in a phone interview prior to the Oscars. “When making the movie, I wasn’t sure where I was on this spectrum.”

“It is the same feelings for all Palestinians, sometimes you understand it, and sometimes you are against it. There is a conflict between your understandings to the people but at the same time you are against action. This conflict in the movie leads to a discussion, especially with the Palestinian audience. (They often said that the movie) made it clear for them. They would say ‘Yes, you understand it, but still you are against it.’”

As a human being, I can’t understand people who have seemed to have no other option to fight injustice. We have to create an option for ourselves (to be able to succeed). “

Abu-Assad answers to the protestors against his film, many who have admittedly not seen it.

“It is important to understand it, to be against it,” Abu-Assad said. “I want people to be free to believe that there is a better way of fighting. I don’t believe that is the only option we have left. It is not the failure of the people who do it, but it is the failure of politics that are really dominant that is creating this fighting. We have to think of something, anything to give people hope.”

Perhaps there is. The film has created dialogue and thought among Palestinians.

“Here, it is bigger pressure, because not only did I need permission from Yasser Arafat to make this film, the people were aware of it and I was under great scrutiny from them,” Abu-Assad said. “Because most of us want the world to recognize that we are a nation with civilized thinking. And partially because of “Paradise Now”, I think they are beginning to feel this way.”

“People in the street don’t go to cinema, but they are happy that I could find an alternative away from expected violence into civilized action through art.”

He is asked which one of the three main characters did he most identify with, was it the intense Salid (Played by Kais Neshef) who is making amends for past family crimes, his friend Khaled (Ali Suliman), who seems loyal more to Salid than the cause, or the woman Suha (Lubna Alzabal) the idealistic and potential love interest of Salid, whose educated far away from their village of Nablus in Europe shaped her thought?

“The voice I fell my voice is everywhere, in all the characters,” Abu-Assad said. “For sure it’s not easy. All the characters tried to be in my voice morality in general. Sometimes you judge morality very differently because you have a different experience at the time. Everyone has struggled with this. Clear moral values depend on a lot of things. And when thinking this thoroughly, I think Palestinians will realize that the actions some take are not acceptable and that there are alternatives.”

(“Paradise Now, which was featured at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, plays Thursday March 10 at the University of California at Santa Barbara)

Photo of Hany Abu-Assad at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival by Becky Sapp and courtesy of WireImage.