Please, no stone throwing, from either side!
The H-Bomb: Some time ago, I mentioned my strong aversion to discussing politics. So why, you may ask, in the hell would I be reviewing a film set against the backdrop of the hottest of all political hot potatoes, the Israel/Palestine conflict? Well, that is a good question that I do not have a good answer for. Guess you could say I’m just crazy like that. So, for this review, I shall do all the ducking, dodging, tiptoeing, and tap dancing that I can around this uber-touchy subject, and try my best to just stick to the story, characters, and what have you without pissing off anyone on either side of this never ending geopolitical cluster fuck.
“Miral” is the story (based on a semi-autobiographical book by Rula Jebreal, who also scripted) of a young Palestinian woman named Miral (you don‘t say!), who is named after a red flower that grows on the side of the road, in case you care. Miral grows up in an all girls school/orphanage, and comes of age during the First Intifada (Palestinian Uprising). At least, that’s what “Miral” eventually becomes about. For roughly the first half of the film, it actually follows the lives of three other women spanning a period of four decades.
The first being Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass), who founded the orphanage shortly after the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, after encountering a large group of children who are without a home or family after the fighting. Her main goal with the orphanage is to focus on education, in hopes of steering the children away from violence and giving them the chance at having peaceful, productive lives. She’s certainly not indifferent to what’s happening around her, she simply recognizes bloodshed for the solution that it’s not.
The second woman the story follows is Nadia (Yasmine Al Massri), who runs away from home after being sexually abused by her stepfather, finds work as a belly dancer, becomes an alcoholic, and gets herself thrown in prison for six months after assaulting an Israeli woman on a bus. The third is Fatima (Ruba Blal), Nadia’s cellmate in prison who is serving three life sentences for planting a bomb in a movie theater (playing Polanski’s “Repulsion”). Fatima and Nadia become close friends, and one day during a visitation, Fatima introduces Nadia to her brother, Jamal (Alexander Siddig), whose views are more moderate than his sister’s. Jamal takes Nadia in after she’s released, and soon after they are married.
Five years later, Jamal and Nadia are unhappily married, her drinking is worse than ever, and they have a young daughter, Miral (who finally appears 45 minutes into a 105 minute long film). After a tragic incident, Jamal takes Miral to Hind’s orphanage to live and be educated. Jumping ahead another ten years, the aforementioned Intifada has started, and Miral, who has started a relationship with a resistance leader, is torn between abiding by Hind’s teaching, or joining the inevitably violent uprising. Which path will she choose?
I’ll just come right out and state my main problem with “Miral”, what truly hinders it from being as good as it could’ve been. It’s not that it shows the Israeli-Palestine debacle from a Palestinian point of view- this film does not demonize Israel the way some would have you believe- it’s that it picked the wrong Palestinian as its ultimate protagonist. While Miral does witness a number of interesting things going on around her, she herself is not a particularly interesting character. In fact, when really thinking back on it, I’m amazed at how easily led and influenced she is by others. Her decision on whether or not to become a terrorist constantly changes, depending on who she’s talking to. Sweet Jesus, does this girl not have a mind of her own?
The character that this film should’ve been about is Hind Husseini, who seemed like a far more influential and fascinating person. I wanted to know more about her orphanage. I would’ve liked to see the trials and tribulations of running that place, amid all that chaos, as I think it would have made for a far more compelling narrative. But, alas, the film only brushes over much of this, which is a shame, since Abbass is fantastic in the role, giving Hind strength, integrity, and compassion, and she could’ve carried the whole film easily.
In fact, there are many things, like the stories of Nadia and Fatima, that seem to be brushed over in a hurry in order to get to Miral, who, as stated, isn’t much of a character when all is said and done. Perhaps director Julian Schnabel could’ve allowed the film to be longer, to give these vastly more interesting aspects time to develop, or perhaps, as I suggested, Miral just shouldn’t be there at all.
Schnabel, who previously made “Before Night Falls” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”, two terrific films, is also a painter, and as such, the film is strikingly photographed and beautiful to look at. The vibrant images pop off the screen, and that alone makes the film worth seeing. Mr. Schnabel is truly an artist, that cannot be denied.
Where I think he falters is in the storytelling, not just in the whole Miral situation, but in how the film will transition from one time period to another. The film will leap ahead years at a time in a very abrupt manner, and this can be confusing in spots. The most obvious example being that Miral, when we finally see her, isn’t so much introduced as she’s just there all of the sudden. Watch the film and you’ll see what I mean.
Another beef I have with Schnabel is how the conflict is depicted. Now, he himself is Jewish, and has said in interviews that his sympathies go both ways, and again, I have no problem with the story being told from the Palestinian perspective, but I didn’t always find his depiction of certain Israeli actions to be entirely fair. We see a house get bulldozed in an Arab neighborhood, we see Miral being beaten during an Israeli interrogation, as well as how Israeli Soldiers can be less than polite when searching people at checkpoints. What we don’t see, and what we’re not told, is why Israel may feel it’s necessary to do these things, thus Schnabel fails to give these events their proper context. Also, in all TWO violent acts by Palestinians shown, one in which a bomb doesn’t go off, another in which a non-human target is blown up, the violence seems completely whitewashed by Schnabel and Jebreal.
Schnabel closes the film by trying to reach out to both sides, but considering what I just laid out, that seems like him wanting to have his cake and eat it, too. Casting Vanessa Redgrave in a cameo at the beginning I don’t think helps his chances of reaching both sides, either. I mean, the whole “Zionist Hoodlums” thing… probably not the best idea. Just sayin’.
However, if there is another reason to see “Miral”, aside of how aesthetically gorgeous it is, it’s the cast, which uniformly, is terrific- as an aside, I counted four actors from Spielberg’s “Munich“ in here. Abbass I’ve already talked about, her performance was Oscar worthy, plain and simple. Frieda Pinto (“Slumdog Millionaire”) fairs very well as the adult Miral (once you get over that she’s an Indian playing Palestinian), it’s just too bad she didn’t have a better character to work with. Siddig, as Miral’s father, is the other big standout. He plays him as being understated and kind, and emerges alongside Hind as the most sympathetic character.
Willem Dafoe also shows up early on as an American Army Colonel who is an old friend of Hind. There’s a hint of a possible romance between them, but Dafoe vanishes from the film entirely before it has a chance to develop. It’s always nice to see Willem Dafoe, and he does fine, but his character is of no consequence to the overall film, and it seems as if the part was only written in to give Dafoe, or any recognizable American actor, a role in the movie.
Long story short (too late), “Miral” does have numerous flaws, and I have been hard on it, but for me, the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s not as important as it seems to think it is, and it focuses on the wrong lead character, but it is at times moving and provocative, coming from a point of view often considered taboo. It took balls to make this film, considering how riled up people on both sides can get, and I do recommend seeing it. Just go into it with an open mind.
