Introduction
Paradise Now was filmed in 2005 by director Hani Abu-Assad. This film tells the story of two lost friends who grew up together. In the past, they worked as auto mechanics in the city of Nablus, which is under Israeli control (Paradise Now). Being led by their circumstances, both characters join the extremist group of the large terrorist organization. Their first and last task as members of this group is to attach bombs to their bodies and carry out a terrorist attack. One of the friends is ready and confident in his fight, while the others are entirely in doubt and reveal that his spirit is not strong enough to carry out a terrorist attack. The film is focused on showing the terrorists from the other side, different from the socially-approved negative perspective. They are ordinary people with problems, personal lives, and families like any other person, but sometimes they are forced to commit a terrorist attack by the society in which they live. The film’s main idea is to show that the most complicated and desperate choices, which are usually considered evil, may often be forced on people by society.
The Interpretation of the Film
Paradise Now should be interpreted as depicting terrorism as a war-leading method. The film’s goal is to show life on the other side of social opinion, where the rational socially-conditioned reasons for the emergence of terrorism from an utterly peaceful religion are emphasized. On the technical side, visually, the film, despite the gloomy themes and messages, looks bright (Paradise Now). What is remarkable about the technique is that the director uses no special effects to make the movie colorful: everything is shown as it is. The experiences of the characters are shown realistically and very believably through long monologues and dialogues about morality. The combination of the huge amount of various themes and only a few actions happening on the screen makes the film difficult to comprehend. The film focuses primarily on the psychological and ideological aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The director inserts no political perspectives into the narration, allowing the viewers to focus on the mental sufferings of the characters. The ambiguous themes and ending provoke many thoughts regarding the issue of how the conflict is perceived by ordinary people, especially ones involved in the suicide attacks.
The director allocates many ironic dialogues in the films. For example, the two suicide bombers discuss the paradise they will get to after death. It is also connected with the film’s title, showing that waiting for paradise is pointless, highlighting the importance of life. Another symbolic scene is when, before the suicide, volunteers create farewell videos for their families. They emphasize that their actions are for God with the weapons in their arms (Paradise Now). Therefore, the frames are designed to show how contradictory people can be in making decisions. Considering the implicit interpretation of the film, the call for peace can be mentioned. Becoming a terrorist under the social pressure of constant unfairness and poverty is not complicated. Instead of fighting against terroristic acts, the producer calls to minimize the general impact of wars.
Major Themes and Messages
The filmmakers include various topics related to terrorism, ideological and religious warfare, and the confrontation between good and evil, and describe the war within from the ordinary people’s perspectives. The director of the film, Hani Abu-Assad, has stated in the press that his film is intended to demonstrate a different perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Considering the general plot development, this topic is addressed. However, analyzing the movie from a more comprehensive view, it can be highlighted that the film’s main problem is much more profound than a conflict between countries.
The primary message is to humanize the suicide bombers showing that they are just desperate people who cannot find other reasons to live. The authors show the religious contradictions in understanding the victimization of Islam and the Western views depicted through the image of Suha (Paradise Now). Moreover, the movie’s creators strive to show not only historically and socially significant events but emphasize the inner conflict and suffering of the characters. The burden of sorrow imposed on the characters by society makes them make contradictory decisions (Abu-Assad). The characters doubt their religious positions, the essence of the suicide attack, and the reasons for their existence.
The Significance of the Film Themes
The themes and messages addressed in the movie are significant from several perspectives: historical, religious, emotional, and social. The film represents the unique description of the terrorists’ psychology. The addressing of the conflict between Palestine and Israel through the prism of the movie helps to increase the audience’s awareness of the problem (Cantey 327). Historically, for the Jews who moved to Palestine, the Land of Israel, their emigration was similar to finding a national home after hundreds of years of humiliation and oppression. For the Arabs who had lived in the area for centuries, the Jewish emigration was an intrusion by uninvited guests with dubious rights. As a result of such a historical context, the producer addresses the issues of religious conflict through the clash of interests of the two nations.
The emotional perspective is represented through the conflicting point of Suha and her father, the leader of the suicide attack organization. Said, being at the crossroads of his life, strives to find his ideological path by associating himself with the two mentioned above characters’ perspectives (Paradise Now). His commitment to the terrorist organization’s ideology at first is questioned. Said cannot afford to kill others, but later, his despair is exaggerated, resulting in suicide (Paradise Now). Even feelings toward Suha cannot help Said to the decision to live. On the contrary, Suha’s influence affects Khalid’s choice to live. The film’s primary significance is that the producers do not state whose decision is correct. The key idea is to show that people are different in their psychological reactions and backgrounds, affecting their decision-making process.
The Film’ Primary Lesson
One of the major lessons which the producers want to highlight for modern society is that terroristic actions have deep psychological reasons. People join terroristic organizations led by particular problems. Society itself corners people with various unsolvable issues existing today, such as inequality. At the macro level, the main prerequisites for terrorism are factors related to the transitional state of the community (Silke 5). These factors include the low status of a social group, the lack of hope among its members for socio-economic well-being, the destruction of the traditional value system within their group, or an anomie society. At the personal level, the activation factors of terrorist activity are frustration, cultural identity crisis, and experiencing injustice during socio-cultural comparison.
Describing the reasons why the main characters of the film join the suicide attack, the producer highlights that Said and Khaled have socially conditioned family difficulties. The ending scene shows that people always have choices to make. No unsolvable problems exist in people’s lives, and any mistake can be corrected. Thus, Khalid decides to save his life by avoiding suicide attacks and focusing on the more positive aspects of life. At the same time, Said commits suicide, unable to bear the sorrow and unfairness of society in his life (Cantey 328). Both characters make decisions based on their perception of the surrounding world. Therefore, the primary lesson to show is that terrorism is a mere decision caused by particular, often negative socially-conditioned reasons. As a result, the authors strive to highlight that fighting terrorism should not only be focused on the terrorism-elimination but on minimizing the impact of social problems on people.
Conclusion
The film is focused on showing the terrorists from an atypical perspective. Their actions are described not only by their religious commitment but by the social oppression factors such as adverse life conditions and events. Terrorists are ordinary people with problems, personal lives, and families like any other person, but sometimes they are forced to commit a terrorist attack by the society in which they live. The audience should understand and interpret the film as a call for active fighting against social problems and minimizing the impact of war. The primary lesson society should learn from Paradise Now is that all decisions people make have particular causes and, most often, social backgrounds.
Works Cited
Paradise Now. Directed by Hany Abu-Assad, produced by Beyer Bero, A-Film, 2005.
Cantey, Seth. “Filmic Representations of Radicalization and Terrorism: The Silver Screen as a Catalyst for Social Science.” Media, War & Conflict, vol. 12, no. 3, 1980, pp. 317-330. doi:10.1177/1750635218779953
Silke, Andrew. “The Study of Terrorism and Counterterrorism.” Routledge Handbook of Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Routledge, 2018, pp. 1-10.