In siege, life is time
Between remembering the first
And forget about the last...
life..
whole life,
life lacking it,
hosts neighboring stars
no time for it..
migratory clouds
no place for her..
And life here
you wonder:
How do we bring it back to life?
On the brink of death he says:
I have no reason to lose:
Free I am near my freedom
And I'm in my hands...
I will soon enter my life
born free without parents,
I choose letters of lapis lazuli for my name.
(From the poem "State of Siege", Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish)
The "theme" of the hero who survived the disaster, whether by his will or against his will, is one of the most famous fictional themes in cinema and literature. The epidemic that he saw in a dream sweeping through Cairo in the desert with his wife and son, and he returned to find the world he knew had ended and vanished.
But our heroine here did not taste sleep, and her hiding place did not guarantee her the comfort of ignorance. In the darkness of hiding, she heard the sounds of explosions and screams, the voices of soldiers threatening with loudspeakers, and the smells of gunpowder and bombs. One scene summed up the horrors she could not see with her own eyes.
Although the premiere of the Jordanian film “Farha” came at the 46th session of the Toronto International Film Festival for the year 2021, before it was shown after that in a number of international festivals in Sweden, Italy, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, although it is not the first film to review the events of the Nakba. , its recent showing on Netflix, starting in December, is what sparked large waves of anger and criticism in the occupying country, not only among the observers, but also extended to a number of Israeli officials who described showing the Jordanian film on the Netflix platform as " It aims to incite against Israeli soldiers” (1).
Former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated, "It is insane that Netflix decided to broadcast a film whose aim is to create a false pretext and incite against Israeli soldiers." He also suggested withdrawing Israel's funding for the Saraya Theater in the Arab-majority town of Jaffa, after the theater showed the film.
As for Itamar Ben Gvir, a member of the Israeli Knesset and a ministerial candidate in the expected government of Benjamin Netanyahu, he described the film as "a Jordanian incitement film that proves the extent of hypocrisy in the world towards Israel."
As for the Minister of Culture and Sports, "Hailey Tropper," he described the film as depicting "lies and slander," and that showing it in an Israeli theater is a "disgrace."
Organized campaigns against the film have also emerged from followers of social media platforms in the occupying country (2) (3), in addition to attempts to lower the film's rating on IMDB.
To witness the disaster from the crack of the door
(Social Media)
The Jordanian film "Farha" was written and directed by Darine Salam, starring: Karam Al-Taher, Ashraf Barhoum and Ali Suleiman.
Its events take place in 1948 in a Palestinian village, dealing with the events of the Nakba that led to the displacement of more than 800,000 Palestinians, and claimed the lives of more than 15,000, but it focuses on the young heroine, "Farha", the 14-year-old daughter of the village mukhtar.
An ambitious girl who loves reading, seeks to change her life, and aspires to move to the city with her friend "Fareeda" in order to complete her education at school, instead of the traditional fate that usually awaits girls through early marriage.
Her father refuses at first out of fear for her, but he is soon convinced. However, her joy lasts only less than a day, as all her dreams collapse in an instant when the Zionist soldiers attack her village.
Her father decides to hide her in the al-Mouneh house (the food store) and close the door on her from the outside.
From this hiding place, we watch what is happening with Farha without seeing anything. We only hear what is going on outside. Through the audio tape, we can see the sounds of wailing and screaming, the sounds of bombs, and the shouting of soldiers through the loudspeakers.
An image of a genocide catastrophe that we do not see.
From a small crack in the door, Farha witnesses a cold-blooded murder, where coincidence led a Palestinian family of two children, a father and a mother about to give birth, to take refuge in the house. The man helped his wife to give birth to her child, while Farha thought that this was a hope for her to free her from Her hideout, the Zionist soldiers attacked the family, so that she could watch, holding her breath, how they killed the father, mother, and two girls in cold blood by shooting them, and left the infant on the ground to die a few hours after his birth, without being able to rescue him or help him in her hiding place behind the closed door.
Because reality is always harsher
It is worth noting that the events of the film are taken from a real story, the real heroine of which is named "Radiah", who managed to survive and move to Syria, to tell her story to another girl she befriended there, who happened to be the mother of the film's director and writer, "Darine Salam".
Darren was greatly affected by the story, and it remained engraved in her memory, until she decided to bring it out on screen.
The director was keen to shoot the film in locations that give the viewer the character of ancient Palestinian villages. It was filmed entirely in Jordan, in the governorates of Amman, Ajloun and Balqa.
In general, the external scenes of the film were few, as most of its events took place inside the bunker in Beit al-Mouna, so that its external scenes became just a dull background for the events that come only to form their temporal and spatial framework. She sits secluded to read, and that scene, which is dominated by the laughter of the girls and their loud joy, contrasts starkly with the scene of the end, in which the village appears completely destroyed and devoid of life.
However, the girl’s dreams and her unbridled desire for education and all the possibilities aborted by the Nakba are matters that the film dealt with hastily and with a kind of superficiality, without succeeding in making us feel the real struggle. On the other hand, the film did not depict the events of the Nakba except for a single scene from behind a hole in the door.
What confined the film to cloudy territory.
Unfortunately, despite the strength of the story presented and the extent of its drama, the film was somewhat disappointing on the technical level.
The dialogue relied on short and frugal sentences, trying to draw with the fewest words the relationship between the characters, whether Farah and her father and the tension between them and the controversy between her desire to learn and his fear for her, and her dreams that came in her dialogue with her friend Farida, which the film did not give any dimensions to her personality, It came as if it were just an empty newspaper on which the heroine dreams.
Most of the secondary characters in general came flat, as if they were just frameworks or motivators to move the events. Even the relationship between the father and Farah, the director did not care to give it a depth that gives it more credibility.
The director chose to film most of the events in the bunker, which is a very big challenge, especially in her first feature film.
Between its walls, the heroine was trapped alone in almost complete darkness, which could not be broken except by the light of a scarce lamp, whose oil soon ran out, and a glimmer of light leaked from a small niche near the ceiling that the girl had to close so that the smoke of bombs and gunpowder would not leak to her.
Feelings of fear, terror, waiting, and basic needs for food, water, and defecation, are all things that trap the little heroine in a very narrow space.
And the director succeeded in conveying it by relying in most of the scenes on the use of close, narrow and suffocating cadres, in which the heroine is trapped, just as she was trapped in fear and loneliness inside her hideout.
successful adventure
The Jordanian film "Farha" was written and directed by Darine Salam.
(Social Media)
The choice of the director to present the events of the Nakba from a different perspective is considered a directorial adventure in which she moved away from the political discourse and focused on the personal story of the girl who leaves the world of childhood. As if this was a blatant symbol of her transition from childhood innocence to maturity through the harshness of experience.
All within a very narrow spatial framework, a slow pace and as heavy as a catastrophe.
Despite this, the film is considered for its adventure, and perhaps this is one of the secrets of the great success it achieved on the critical level, as it was officially nominated to represent the Kingdom in the 95th Academy Awards for the feature film category.
The film won a large number of awards, including 3 awards at the 6th Aswan International Women's Film Festival: the European Union Award for Best Euro-Mediterranean Film Dealing with Women's Issues, Bahija Hafez Award for Best Director, and Nadia Lotfi Award for Best Actress, which was won by Karm Al-Taher, the film's heroine. .
In the face of the Zionist attack on the film, director Darine Salam, along with producers Dima Azar and Aya Jadana, issued a press release saying: “Our film has been violently attacked by Israeli government officials and the Israeli media as well as by Israeli individuals on social media and other platforms, and we are a team.” We condemn all the accusations of defaming [Farah], the campaign organized against the film on [IMDb.com] to lower its rating, the attempts to stop showing the film at Saraya Jaffa Theater, as well as the call to cancel Netflix subscriptions since the film was shown on the platform.”
The statement added: “The campaign against the film aims to silence our voices as Arabs and as film directors to strip us of our humanity and prevent us from telling our stories and our narrative, but all campaigns will not prevent us from our goal and presenting the film’s story to reach audiences all over the world” (4).
____________________________________
Sources:
1- Israel condemns Netflix film showing murder of Palestinian family in 1948 war
2- Netflix's “Farha” and the Palestinian Right to Process Pain Through Art
3- Israeli ministers have attempted to stop screening of the 1948 massacre tale at Jaffa theater outside Tel Aviv.
4- FARHA filmmakers: We will not be silenced by the Israeli-led campaign against us and the film