Palestine 36

Annemarie Jacir's exciting portrayal of Palestinians at this titular place and time is only the third film ever submitted by Palestine for Academy Award consideration. Set in a key year in Middle Eastern history, when European Jews were fleeing the Nazis and settling in Jerusalem and its neighboring villages, while the British, embodied by Jeremy Irons playing the real-life colonial administrator High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope, attempted to impose colonial rule over Palestine.

It's hard to judge a historical feature like this when you're as ignorant of the history as I am, but I very much appreciated how contained the narrative was. Were this produced by a wealthy nation not at war, it would certainly have been a streaming series lasting hours and hours and delving into far more nuance. But would it be as effective as this small-scale movie that feels like an epic? I don't think so. The story is based on the bombing of a rural village at a time when Palestinian workers were striking in protest of their poor working conditions and the fact that so many well-paid jobs were going to Jewish immigrants.

The movie focuses almost exclusively on the Palestinian villagers and the British colonizers, who eventually begin to claim native land that goes back generations because the rural families don't have formal deeds. The partition the British advocate for will eventually become the State of Israel. Each main character represents one of the era's factions, their struggles, and their point of view, yet the writer and actors render them as flesh-and-blood characters, not mouthpieces or metaphors. It's fascinating how deeply relatable these characters are; the English and the Arabs. I have no idea how many years it took to make this film, but its 2025 release feels astounding in itself.