When the UN voted for the separation of Palestine and the creation of the Jewish state in Otto Premingers Exodus, the Palestinian village chief (John Derek) grieves: Now we became the minority. Except for this moment which nails down the fundament of this never-ending conflict, the portrayal of the Palestinian Arabs remains the chief weakness of this epic, and the ultimate reason why it finally could never exceed being a Zionist propaganda--after all it is not fair. Though the elements used to depict the process are not necessary fabricated, the context somewhat get lost and ends up remaining very one-sided. Dalton Trumbo and Preminger certainly tried to portray the Palestinians, albeit the other side of the coin of the same 1948 events, with fairness and made the efforts to show them not as barbaric nor violent, but that good-willingness from their part became their own trap. Rather than criticizing,I consider this failure is exposing to us how difficult to make a film about the Israel-Palestine conflict that is fair and unbiased (if not impossible--I still think its a worthy challenge). Yes it is factual that the left wing Zionists, at least some of them including David Ben Gourion himself, spoke always of the Erez Israel becoming also home for the Arabs, and probably even believed in that--to certain extent. Yes it is also factual that the Palestinian Arabs really didnt have the chance to speak for themselves, also true that many of them didnt want to fight the Jews, were even sympathetic, while it was more the greater Arab world and its leaders pushing them to fight and plunge into what would eventually become the endless violent conflicts. And yes some of these Arab leaders even had some connections to the Nazis, while the majority of Palestinian Arabs absolutely not. Trumbo and Preminger certainly tried to put their efforts in depicting this complexity, tried not to show the Palestinians as enemies. They even gave John Derek a second key line to understand the true theme of the film, hence showing him wiser than the films heroes Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint : Guarantee is one thing, reality is another. In this pivotal moment, Derek is shown as intelligent while Paul Newman totally naive, even with a hint of self-denial and self-deception, or unconscious pretense. His counter-speech of how Israel also should become their home sounds empty if not false, a mere excuse that he himself could not seriously believe in, as thats how the speech is pronounced. But still, it doesnt work... That was not enough... To include the ex German officer (Marius Goring) now working for some of the greater Arab worlds leaders ends up contradicting the filmmakers seeming good-willingness in portraying the Palestinians as good people. Instead of showing the Palestinians good, the film ends up showing them as mere victims not in control of their fate (or beggars, not humans). And instead of including that the Palestinians also had to defend themselves from the Jews, from Irgun or Palmach or Hagannah, we just see the tragic figure of this village chief executed as traitor by Arabs. One can even say that they tried to incorporate the complexity of the Palestinian side but ended up making a twisted and false over simplification. Yes of course, a very neglected side of this conflict is that Palestinians have been also victimized by the other Arab nations, sold out by their own leaders, and also victimized by those in the advanced countries seemingly in support of Palestine when indeed they have been exploiting Palestinians for their own causes more than actually helping them. The situation can never be really understood in depth without being conscious of that aspect, that Palestinians became the easiest to exploit for propaganda while nobody speaks of their truth, and most of us dont even allow them to speak for themselves. But as a result of trying to include that not so often spoken aspect of the conflict, Exodus neglected that first and foremost, it was Israel who deprived the Palestinians from their land, pushed them to become discriminated minorities, that the heroes of the film inevitably became aggressors themselves. Though the sequence of the abandoned Arab village where Paul Newman finds John Derek hanged is hauntingly beautiful, a very effective sequence by itself, in the narrative of the film it fails to expose the tragedy of the Palestinians that it should have, and became an awkward excuse for the Israeli Jews. A pity really, as our Jewish protagonists dehumanized and in uniform strolling in the Arab village now turned a ghost town is by itself among the best scenes of the film, and is very beautifully done. Visually, it is a Nakba image. But rather than just accusing Preminger and Trumbo for ending up in making a film that couldnt exceed a Zionist propaganda, or a Hollywoodian white-washed fable unfair to the other side, Id rather see this as an example of how difficult to make a film about this conflict in all fairness and honesty, not remaining hypocritically aloof yet coherent in its narrative. At least they made the challenge, when most of us will seclude ourselves in pretending superficial pacifism because we can: after all its not our skin which is at risk, we dont need to defend our own lives nor regain our own self-integrity. We think we can speak loudly about Human lives are precious! when their reality was Whats so unusual in Jews dying? Theres nothing new as pronounced clearly by one of the Jewish refugees on the ship. Exodus may have failed in its challenge, but that only means we must continue to try, with complete awareness that there are no such point of view as being totally fair and egalitarian about it, that every each of us cannot escape from being biased and one-sided, that we should be honest about that limitation of ours instead of hiding behind our pretending to be good-willing and ending up making a shallow condescending untruthful film. And at least we have to give credit to Trumbo for the audacity as well as dramaturgical sensitivity in making an Arab character exposing the essence in his own convincing words: We now became the minority and reality is another--indeed both phrases nailing down the central theme of this film, and the essence of this seemingly never-ending conflict.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 07:40:27 +0000
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