Paradise Now DVD > Reviews > Paradise Now on DVD

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	Superb acting; low key realism; Lack of prejudice
Disadvantages:	None (unless you hate reading subtitles)

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Every now and then a movie will sneak up and catch you by surprise. So it was for me with Paradise Now, a film I knew nothing about, other than a website blurb about two potential suicide bombers.

Co-written and directed by Hany Abu-Assad this is a story set within the West bank in Palestine, with two friends, Said and Khaled, being offered their chance of martyrdom (hence 'Paradise Now') by carrying out a suicide mission in Tel Aviv.

Both the men react to the invitation with a mixture of relief, confusion and elation, though it is Khaled who seems the happiest to grab the chance. Said is more thoughtful, altogether darker, about the whole affair.

But they are both ready, and then readied after a blackly comic filming of their martyr speeches, as they have their hair shaved short, and bears shaved off, to make them look more Israeli. The bombs are strapped to their waists (complete with anti-tamper device) and they are clothed in idential black suits, white shirts and black ties (to complete their cover of going to a wedding).

It's hard to write this review without offering some spoilers, but when I say that things don't go to plan I hope I'm not giving too much away. We enter the second half of the movie with the men separated and trying to find each other again in the West Bank, with recriminations flying from those in charge of the operation.

During this period of confused suppressed fear we see attitudes change, preconceptions alternately challenged and backed up, a maintenance of a low level black humour, and the simple desire of two men wanting to do the right thing but not entirely clear that they know what that is.

By the end the two friends are reunited, with the final scenes as strong as you are ever likely to have seen.

For a film with such a political and reviled action at its centre this has a remarkably neutral feel. We see the good and the bad within the West Bank and Israel, the contradictions that exist, and the hatred that refuses to die in the face of reason. The portrayals of every character, from Said and Khaled to their parents, from the daughter of a killed martyr to the schoolteacher planning the attacks, seem perfectly real and honest.

There is no attempt to convince the viewer of any particular standpoint, and no grandstand drum-banging. It is an emotional movie precisely because it does not try to do anything other than show the truth of a friendship between two men in a remarkable situation. And the final act, which could have adopted a Hollywood 'shock and awe' tactic, instead is an exercise in restraint that has you watching holding your breath in the silence.

Deservedly nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and winning a litany of other international awards, this is a film without prejudice, which might just make people think more honestly about the situation in the Middle East.