DVD | Paradise Now

2 comments
Rating: M - Contains Adult Themes.
Duration: 90 mins.
Genre : Festival.
Actors: Lubna Azabel, Amer Hiehel, Kais Nashef, Ali Suliman.
Release Date: Available now.

Khaled and Said have been best friends all their lives. They’ve grown up together, stuck together, and decided to do one last thing together.

They’re about to send a message to Israel. Well, not so much send, but be the message. They’ve both been chosen to be suicide bombers. Martyrs for the cause. It’s something they’ve wanted to do, and do together for a while.

And now they have their chance.

But things don’t go quite to plan, and the mission is aborted, and almost totally called off. On reflecting their choices, in the shadow of having explosives strapped to their bodies, both men let their thoughts travel down different roads. One, who hooks up with the child of a great martyr, finds out that there’s another side to the story, one of pain and loss. The other however, spends the time becoming more resolved to be the messenger.

On a whole, Paradise Now isn’t the most action packed movie – in fact it’s quite dull in places. But that’s the whole point of the movie – it’s about the life of two Palestinians, two average people living average lives, who suddenly get a chance at greatness.

What the movie does have, and have in abundance is a balanced view on the topic. It tells the story with a commitment to laying out the faults on both sides of the fence. It doesn’t glorify the situation either.

Far from entertaining, it is informative and eye opening, and forces you to think about what you truly believe.

Food for thought
When faced with no other means of fighting, are suicide bombers a legitimate form of protest?

Comments

2 comments to "DVD | Paradise Now"

Violet said...
2:14 PM

you just reminded me of a great festival movie I went to see a few years ago. I can't for the life of me remember what it was called, but it was about a young Indian woman who's been trained up to be a suicide bomber. The film ends right at the moment when she's supposed to go ka-pow, but is she going to do it or not?

Geekery said...
4:42 PM

That sounds like an interesting movie, I'm assuming it's called The Terrorist, but sadly Fatso don't have it listed :o(