04/06/2011
Review by David Anthony
Miral, a film by Julian Schnabel Julian Schnabel’s Miral, is a work of keen importance. Screened by the director of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Before Night Falls and Basquiat, it features a vivid screenplay adapted by Palestinian Rula Jebreal from her novel of the same name. Author Jebreal bears an astonishing resemblance to its star Freida Pinto, introduced to international audiences in the quasi-Bollywood blockbuster, Slumdog Millionaire.
Miral has already become controversial for attempting to humanize the lives of those Palestinians experiencing decades of Israeli occupation with all of its effects, which are dramatized in small and large ways. It focuses first upon women such as Hind Husseini, with whose story we open and close, Nadia, birth mother of Miral, Fatma, a contemporary of Nadia, and Miral, the eponymous protagonist herself. From these women the film moves outward into their families and communities, showing how anything that happens to them as individuals affects all their affines.Miral’s voice tells viewers that while she was born in 1973, her story began in 1948 with the founding of a girls’ school, Dar al-Tifl, the children’s house by Hind Husseini in response to the displacement of scores of orphans occurring in the wake of the fierce hostilities and expropriation surrounding the founding of Israel. The specific stimulus was the razing of the village and uprooting of the survivors of Deir Yassin. Mama Hind, as she was known, although single, became mentor and guide, acting in loco parentis for hundreds of young women, creating an institution that outlived her.Miral is eventually enrolled in Dar al-Tifl by her father, to protect her from the many unpredictable circumstances that frame her own life between the loss of her mother and the Palestinian anti- occupation uprising that began in 1987, called the Intifada. Through the lone school and Miral, a largely unheard series of insider narratives are detailed, of survival within the walls and bars of the prison many see as occupation.It is critical to note that Schnabel includes an epigram at the conclusion of the film in which he makes clear his intention to dedicate this effort to those on both sides of the divide seeking to bring about peace. Whether this or any other part of the tale will be believed is a matter left to individual conscience. It is significant that this saga does seek to remind us that there is more than one side.
For this viewer that sobering aim served as a motivator to confront the challenge of considering that complexity should not be an excuse for resisting a painful counter narrative. See Miral and make up your own mind, that is, if it is not already made up. As an old saw runs, there are three sides to every story: your side, their side and the truth. While we may profess to know the truth, it must be the sum of all of its parts.
For the KUSP FILM GANG, this is David Anthony