Posted on 08/12/2002 9:45:26 AM PDT by Alouette
A cartoon-musical about suicide bombing and racist thuggery, considered too inflammatory to be shown in the Middle East, is to premiere next week at the Edinburgh international film festival.
Promise Land, a film in the style of a children's cartoon, features a rapping suicide bomber, racist Jews and an Arab waiter masturbating into food for a Jewish table. The Israeli director, Gili Dolev, has created a pessimistic, non-partisan view of the Middle East conflict, after losing faith in the peace process.
His family in Israel has been angered by the 15-minute film, which will be shown only in the west and opens as part of the McLaren short films showcase at Edinburgh. It will go on to the Toronto film festival in September.
Dolev, 28, who left Israel for Scotland in 1998 after three years in the army, told the Sunday Herald he intended to keep a low profile in Edinburgh and refused to be photographed for fear the film could spark a backlash against him.
The film opens with a shot of Omar, an Arab waiter, masturbating into a plate of food for a Jewish couple, after another customer has called him a "stinking Arab".
Omar is interviewed by an American journalist who then films a series of young men from both sides of the conflict.
These include Eitan, a young Jew who beats up an old Arab man while talking to the camera; Ahmed, a rapping suicide bomber on a bus, who talks of the 69 virgins awaiting his arrival in heaven; and Gaddi, an Israeli soldier, who shrugs when a child is killed in crossfire.
Dolev said: "It's important for people on both sides to see there is suffering on both sides. I know films don't change the world and I know no one is listening both in Palestine and in Israel."
The film ends with a greying Jewish man and his elderly Arab backgammon partner bickering as the sun sets over Jerusalem.
...Eitan, a young Jew who beats up an old Arab man while talking to the camera...
...Gaddi, an Israeli soldier, who shrugs when a child is killed in crossfire.
Wow. Good thing it's "non-partisan" - hate to see what he'd do if he decided to take sides.
You can run but you can't hide.
Gad man, don't give Jesse Jackson any ideas! He has admitted to spitting on food for white people. This gives "secret sauce" a whole new meaning.:^0
Actually I think people like this are extreme self-lovers. Their love of self exceeds love of country, co-religionists, etc.
Like Chomsky the main drive is egoism ... getting their name in the papers is the primary objective. Supporting his country wouldn't do that.
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