Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!


Contact
Ace:
aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck:
buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD:
cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix:
mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum:
petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton:
sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com


Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups






















« Saturday Afternoon Chess Thread 12-14-2019 | Main | Saturday Overnight Open Thread (12/14/19) »
December 14, 2019

Saturday Evening Movie Thread 12-07-2019 [Hosted By: Moviegique]

Tel Aviv On Fire


I have, in the past, noted the irony that Chinese films seem a lot less censored than those from Hollywood, and today I will note the irony that Israeli movies seem a lot less political. (This is true of Israeli movies, I will say, but absolutely not Palestinian movies. Palestinian movies—every one we've seen—framed blowing civilians up as a Good Thing, and indeed in many cases the only happy ending.) Case in point, Tel Aviv on Fire: a wacky comedy about a Palestinian soap opera writer who finds the fate of his soap opera characters—and the desires of people on either side of the wall regarding those fates—are tied to his own.

tel aviv 01.jpg
Maisa Abd Elhadi (Mariam) doubts I can stick this landing.


Our hero is Salam, a slacker we first meet as he tries to win back his ex-, Mariam. But as she points out, and he can't deny, he's just bumbling through life, and even the soap opera he's starting to work on—well, he just got the job because his uncle, the producer, needs someone with good Hebrew for his Arabic actors (who are playing Israelis). Their soap opera, "Tel Aviv on Fire", takes place on the eve of the Six-Day War, and the plot is that a Palestinian general sends his lover across the border to seduce and spy on (and ultimately kill, presumably) the Israeli General.

Salam helps out with some simple pronunciations but then immediately objects to a situation where the one of the generals compliments the heroine's beauty by saying "You look explosive." He earns the ire of the writer by objecting to that line but wins the favor of the French star, Tala. As tense as things are there, things really heat up for him when he's stopped at the border by a belligerent commander, Assi. Salam tries to smooth things out by claiming to write the show, and giving the commander some inside info.


tel aviv 02.jpg
Salam tries to keep it professional, but you know how actresses are.


Well, as it turns out Assi's wife is a huge fan of the show, as are her girlfriends, and Assi is rather annoyed by her enchantment with the Palestinian general. "He's a terrorist!" Assi exclaims in exasperation, to which his wife retorts, "Not everything is about politics." (Of course, the Six-Day War was the attempt of the Arabic world to wipe out Israel and as we have seen nearly succeeded, and this soap is definitely meant as propaganda, but "not everything is about politics".)

Anyway, Assi is pissed that the Israeli general is such a stiff and he demands Salam write him better. Salam, who is completely at Assi's mercy—he cannot cross into Palestine without Assi's approval—exploits this by suggesting Assi write the scenes that he wants to see from the Israeli general. Before you know it, the Israeli general is the hot ticket, and the dramatic conflict endears him even further to Lubna. But he's also slipping in little messages to Mariam that she invariable sees because everyone in the hospital she works at watches "Tel Aviv on Fire", especially as the audience grows with the shows unexpected twists and turns.

Salam grows as well. Assi's contributions got him a shot to actually script the show (especially after the pissed-off writer quit) but he realizes that the Israeli commander's experiences can only partly fuel thing, and so he starts to write the romantic things from his relationship (and from anyone he can eavesdrop on, like a true writer).

Assi unfortunately grows increasingly bellicose: Salam has promised him (back when he was pretending to write the show) that the Israeli general and the Palestinian spy would get married. But the show's backers aren't going to allow that. His uncle's solution is simple: Have the wedding, but have Tala be strapped for explosives so she can blow everyone up. Salam argues that's too cliché, they've all seen it a million times. (I wasn't kidding about Palestinian movies.)

tel aviv 03.jpg
The uncle is played by Nadim Sawalha, a character actor in many English-language movies, like "The Spy Who Loved Me".


So at our climactic moment, we have Salam needing to assuage Assi, and his uncle, and his uncle's Palestinian financiers, and Mariam (because Lubna is coming on strong), and not least to defend his newly acquired position as a writer of some skill and the self-respect that has brought him. The solution he does come up with is quite delightful.

It's a lot of fun. And it's really not very political. (In fact, you'll see some critics complaining exactly that: It's not political enough! It goes for goofy fun instead of biting satire!) The anodyne suggestion made here is, essentially, "what we've been doing up till now hasn't worked, maybe we should try something different." And I can't help but note the subtext of the financiers basically stoking the fires of hate.

The stars of the film, Kais Nashif (as Salam) and Lubna Azabal (Tala, Coriolanus, Incendies), co-starred in 2005's Paradise Now which was my introduction to Palestinian cinema, and features the "happy ending" of one of the characters blowing himself up on a bus full of Israeli soldiers. It's a great introduction to the mindset, really, which is "Jews are evil. They oppress us and are responsible for all our woes. We must kill them all." I can only recommend it for that purpose—understanding the mindset—because it was genuinely morally repugnant (and showered with awards, naturally).

It would be nice to think that that mindset were changing but director/co-writer Sameh Zoabi (writer/director of 2010's charming Man Without A Cell Phone) is Israeli as are all the producers (from what I can tell). It's pretty routine to hear cries for "solutions" and "compromise" from that side of the wall. But the next Palestinian movie I see with that viewpoint will be the first.


tel aviv 04.jpg
She's hesitant because the targets she's shooting at are...gasp...pictures of Palestinian "Freedom Fighters".

digg this
posted by OregonMuse at 08:08 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
JQ: "Closest old roller rink to here, has been converte ..."

Casino: "It's a pity you don't have a donate button! I'd ..."

Skip : "There were a couple roller rinks around here. Good ..."

Farmer, with his own historical take: "Solidified my commie hatred, too. But the nuns got ..."

teen masturbation webcams: "It can often be somewhat additional complicated as ..."

JQ: "Good skating music. youtube.com/watch?v=n3qQtSR ..."

JQ: "Wow. So sad that Vic is *still* not on The List. ..."

JQ: "Ahhh, Skate World... I remember being "amped up ..."

sex dolls for women: "Reading Mandela’s Long Walk To Freedom befor ..."

JQ: "Really, MammaB? Oh, that's just... well, church ..."

masters of sex cast: "Do you want to squeeze some more time out of the w ..."

MammaB: "There was an excellent one in Springfield, OR. Ska ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64