Director: Annemarie Jacir

Stars: Karim Daoud Anaya, Hiam Abbass, Kamel Al Basha, Yasmine Al-Massri, Dhafer L’Abidine

This timely picture from Palestine writer-director Annemarie Jacir charts the events leading up to the 1936 Arab revolt, sixteen years after the British had formally taken control, and three years after the Balfour Declaration which pledged to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Yousef (Anaya) is the film’s ostensible focal point, a young man working in Jerusalem for a prominent journalist Amir (L’Abidine), but who hails from Al Basma, a small fishing village. Visiting home, it becomes apparent to Yousef that resentment is building towards the new Jewish arrivals: they are paid more than the locals, and a shipment of arms is accidentally uncovered en route to the new settlements. The Palestinians begins to prepare for a fightback, illustrated when an armed resistance group swoop down on a cross-country train and the disparate collection of passengers give what they can to help the struggle. Meanwhile back in the city, Amir’s wife, the more radical pro-Arab columnist Khuloud (al Massri), begins to question her newspaper’s practices. Jacir ably juggles the various British and Palestinian characters and their respective viewpoints, but there is a lot of history to get through and consequently the dialogue tends towards the exposition-laden and on-the-nose. Other times, it is anachronistically modern, presumably to underline the timelessness of the themes. Despite the script’s occasional middlebrow historical drama feel, it is very strong in its depiction of that very British combination of brutality and condescension. The feeling of righteous anger finally arrives in the stirring third act.

David Willoughby

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