[lbo-talk] Paradise Now and Munich

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Tue Dec 27 09:15:11 PST 2005



> Once the re-enactors realize that (as Khaled did) changing the
> script does offer a way out if, and that is a big if, the
> protagonists take responsibility for their own decisions and
> choices instead of relying on canned scripts embedded in popular
> culture.
>
> Wojtek

The only thing that Khaled walks out of is a suicide bombing mission. He's still living under the Israeli occupation, mediated by the Palestinian Authority and its Islamist challengers, from which arrangement he can't walk out. So, the audience doesn't know what will become of Khaled. For all the audience knows, he will get shot by an Israeli, die of lack of medical care due to checkpoints or unemployment or both, or what have you. The only major Palestinian character in the film who has an option to walk out is Suha -- she's a cosmopolitan from a wealthier family than Khaled's and Said's, who was born in France, grew up in Morocco, etc. If she stays in Palestine, that's her choice; if she decides to give up on non- violent resistance, she can probably get papers to go somewhere else and find a job.

Avner of Munich -- which, with Paradise Now, makes a kind of coincidental liberal humanist diptych -- in fact walks out of Israel, settling in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter. But Munich ends with a shot of the twin towers, suggesting that the dialectic of violence, as well as your nightmare, will follow you, even if you leave Israel.

Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>



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