I didn’t get a sneak preview nor was I among the VIPs who attended the premier of Miral at the UN General Assembly. I had to wait for its release in a nearby theatre, which luckily turned out to be only an hour away in Philadelphia. That means I had read and heard plenty of reviews of the film before I actually watched it. They were mixed and varied reactions, but I think I was able to leave them outside the theatre before I entered so I could decide for myself. There was one thing, however, that I couldn’t leave at the door: my Palestinian-ness. So, I went in wanting to like the film. I was holding my breath hoping to see a compelling Palestinian narrative, told by a Palestinian woman who lived at Dar el Tifl, the orphanage where I too had spent years of my adolescence in the early 80s.
Susan Albuhawa standing with a teacher ourside Dar el Tifl.
Miral is the story of four Palestinian women of different generations and circumstances: Hind el Husseini, an unmarried heiress from a prominent Jerusalem family who founded Dar el Tifl and devoted her life to empowering young Palestinian girls; Nadia, a 1948 Palestinian (Palestinians with Israeli citizenship) who leaves home to escape persistent rape by her stepfather but was never able to outrun her own demons; Fatima, Nadia’s cellmate in an Israeli prison; and finally, Miral, Nadia’s daughter who goes to live at Dar el Tifl after her mother, Nadia commits suicide.
I knew that Israel and its various American lobbying wings had protested the showing of this film at the UN, claiming it to be anti-Israel. That gave me even more hope that I was about to watch the first honest portrayal of life as a Palestinian growing up under Israeli military occupation. By the time the film was over, however, the only reason I could fathom for such protestations was that Miral is perhaps the first semi-mainstream film to show Palestinians as something more akin to human rather than monsters to be reviled or pathetic and destitute refugees to be pitied. Indeed, Miral succeeds in showing a human face to Palestinians. Pittance and basic as that might be – to be recognized as fully human, even if only in a film – it is perhaps a feat after six decades of little more than the damaging and painful stereotypes.
My reaction to the film was mostly cerebral because it failed to pull me in emotionally. If I were to depict the film graphically, I’d draw a more or less flat line. There was one exception and it is this scene: Miss Hind is standing alone by the gates of the orphanage and then the film cuts to her funeral. The abrupt transition knotted my throat with the realization that I never got a chance to say good bye to that incredible woman who took me in when there was no other safe place in the world for me. I never got a chance to thank her, or tell her how profoundly she touched my life. So I cried in the theatre for the loss of el Sit Hind, as we called her. Although my waterworks have more to do with my own memories and regrets, credit must also be given to Hiam Abbas, whose portrayal of Miss Hind was authentic and brilliant. In fact, it was Hiam’s acting that made Hind Husseini’s story shine above the stories of the other three women.
There were a few “insider” bits in the film that only those who knew Miss Hind would have noticed. When a baby left by the mosque door is brought to her, she takes it and remarks that the name “Hedaya” might be suitable. Hedaya means “gifts” in Arabic and it happens that that baby was a real little girl whom Miss Hind later adopted. Hedaya was a headmistress of sorts when I lived at Dar el Tifl. She was a student when my mother lived there many years before me and the rivalry between the two of them meant that Hedaya didn’t like me much. I smiled and silently thanked Rula Jebreal for writing her into the script. In a way, it seemed a gift from Rula to Hedaya, who looked after us, even if she wasn’t always very nice.
In addition to Hiam Abbas’ excellent portrayal of Miss Hind, Alexander Siddig, who played the role of Miral’s father, was also believable and well-done. On the other hand, why Frieda Pinto was chosen to play Miral eludes me entirely. Every time she opened her mouth, all I heard was a Hindi accent. Her acting, too, fell far short of the role. For example, what could have been poignant or emotional points in the film – when she thanks “Mama Hind” or when she learns that the father she has known her whole life was not biologically related to her – ultimately felt insincere and contrived.
The role of Fatima was even more badly done that at times it seemed she was merely reading from a teleprompter. I can’t blame the actor solely. The script was awkward and Fatima’s story seemed incomplete. The character tells us that she decided to plant a bomb in a crowded theatre to ‘make them suffer like they make us suffer.’ Yet all we see of her suffering is that she lost her job as a nurse after helping wounded Jordanian soldiers escape back to Jordan. As a Palestinian, of course, I know the suffering she’s talking about, but someone just watching the film will have no idea. Herein are the two biggest problems with this film, both of which have to do with the political aspect. On one hand, there was too much politics; and on the other, there was too little of it.
By too much, I mean that the political story overshadowed the human one such that it often felt like the characters were created to serve as mere vehicles to deliver a political message. While the use of art to illuminate a political reality is an honorable literary and artistic tradition, I feel that the artist’s or writer’s foremost loyalty should be to his or her characters, not the political, social, or historic backdrop. A writer’s mandate is to tell the story of their characters with honesty, humanity, and authenticity; in doing so, the backdrop and back stories emerge. Unfortunately, Miral gave center stage to the political situation, from which characters emerged as a supporting cast. That said, I do understand how easy it is to fall into that trap as a writer. When the political reality has defined your whole life, created wounds and kept them bleeding for as long as you can remember, that is the part you want the world to know about. You want to scream about a system of oppression that sees you as less than human. It’s hard not to and I can understand this shortcoming of the film. But it’s the reason the film does not succeed as a work of art.
This brings me to the worst and most unpalatable, even unforgivable, aspect of this film. I’ve saved the bad for last; It’s the ‘too little’ part. Someone with no background on the realities of this wretched conflict will walk away from Miral with the sense that it’s a dispute between two essentially equal sides who simply don’t see eye to eye. There was no real hint of the gross imbalance of power or the racially motivated destruction of life that inches deeper and deeper every day into what little remains of Palestine to Palestinians. No hint of the apartheid system employed as a means of slow ethnic cleansing. Even when it came to the bloody orphans of Deir Yassin, we are told that “soldiers” killed their parents. Anyone with knowledge of history or the social circumstances of the time would have known that the residents of that village would have likely been screaming warnings to others to run because “the Jews are here”. The word “soldier” then referred to the British and I can’t help but believe that the use of that word was meant to tiptoe around the fact that terrorist Jewish gangs butchered civilians in home after home in that village. At one point we see the British flag lowered and the Israeli flag raised, perpetuating the idea that Palestine was never there. These are just some examples of a fundamental dishonesty that underpins Miral.
Moviegoers watching what little is shown of this reality will likely judge Israeli actions as justified, however distasteful. In other words, the minimally negative light in which Israel is shown is contextualized. Not so for Palestinians. Take for example Schnabel’s treatment of what could have happened to Israelis in a movie theatre when Fatima leaves a bomb under the seat [it never goes off, btw]. We see their innocent faces, one by one. They’re just like us, ordinary people just going to see a film. We see an unsuspecting couple making out, kissing in their seats. It’s not an emotional scene at all. But it does set the stage to give soldiers justification later on to beat Miral. The actions of the Israeli soldiers thus have context. On the other hand, Fatima seemingly decided to blow up a theatre full of people because she lost her job.
Another striking failure of this film is the scene of a home demolition. Schnabel shows us a random family being told to leave their home and then we see the walls of that home crumble as an unseen soldier demolishes it. Racially motivated demolition of Palestinian homes is a constant and lately accelerated reality for Palestinians. There are plenty of real footage of these evictions and subsequent destruction of homes that could have been rendered in the film. The reality of this monumentally traumatic racist policy is that children are often seen scrambling to save what little they can of their books and toys. Israeli soldiers rip people from their homes kicking and screaming. Neighbors come out to help and are met with brutal suppression by soldiers. Women cry, they raise their prayers to the heavens for mercy. The despair of the families contorts their faces into expressions that shatter a human heart with outrage and sadness. There was none of this in that in Schnabel’s interpretation. His treatment of what could have been an immensely emotional scene was nearly comatose. We see the stoic patriarch of the family clearly upset and the viewer possibly feels pity for him. There are no scattered personal belongings. The home seems empty when it’s destroyed. There are no traumatized children and next to nothing of the true human reaction to the intentional destruction of one’s home, one’s only refuge.
Footage of the first intifada looked like street rioters faced with good police doing their job to restore order. There was nothing of Israel’s “break their bones” policy, or of their specific targeting of children, who were left with nothing to do but roam the streets when Israel enforced a “no school” ignorization policy for Palestinian children. This context – of the sheer brutality and racism of Israeli policies toward Palestinians – was largely missing. I’m not saying that a Palestinian film must incorporate all of these elements. But if you’re going to include it, do it with honestly, not obfuscation. To the extent that any of the realities on the ground were shown, it seemed almost like a preemptive framing of Israel’s ethnic cleansing, which is increasingly being recognized around the world. Ultimately, Miral is a Zionist’s cinematic rendering of a Palestinian story, replete with leftist Zionist messages. And this reviewer is frankly tired of other people telling our story for us, especially of Zionists framing who we are and what our motivations might be. I haven’t read the book or the screenplay to know how much of the film was Rula and how much was Schnabel. But I do know that there are Palestinian films that far exceed Miral in artistic expression, honesty, and authenticity. Salt of the Sea, by Annemarie Jacir, comes immediately to mind.
Finally, watching Miral was an important lesson for me personally because I am now looking at a contract that will potentially turn Mornings in Jenin into a film. I feel more strongly now that I must have a greater role in writing the screenplay.
All we have now is our story, our heritage and history, our humanity, and the truth of how we are being wiped off the map as a people. It is not appropriate to compromise our truth so the West might inch closer to seeing us as fully human. I feel this is what happened with Miral. It compromises our collective narrative to appease and it lacks the essential human dimension we expect to compel and provoke emotion. The excellent acting of Abbas and Siddig, the new ‘human face’ of Palestinians, and the inspiring life if Hind el Husseini just aren’t enough to redeem Miral.
Susan Abulhawa is the author of Mornings in Jenin (Bloomsbury 2010) and the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine.
Susan, your disappointment is well explained. I hope you can keep all this fine thinking in mind for your own stories, plays, films. Or as an advisor. And thank you for telling us about your own “loss of el Sit Hind”.
I am an American, and even though superficially well-versed in Israeli/Palestinian history, I am essentially a stranger to the feelings of Palestinians (even if I am sympathetic). My late wife was raised in Ramallah but left at age 12 in 1944. She would have understood much better than I, but she lived through 1948 and 1967 in the USA. She knew her father’s travails trying to gain sympathetic audience for the Palestinian story in the USA in 1948-1955 (when he died), and her own problems in schools, but not the life in (or ejected from) post-Israel Palestine. I might add that I am also a stranger to the strong Jewish feelings about the Holocaust although my Jewish family talked about it quite a bit. My Russian uncles knew discrimination but not pogroms. We lost an uncle in WWII but no family in the Holocaust. I can understand, from your comments here, how some Israelis can complain of Palestinian lack of sympathy or understanding of Israeli Holocaust feelings. After all, if I don’t share their feelings, why should a Palestinian from Jenin? People live in different worlds and much history is cut out of cardboard. How can I understand the McCarthy days in the USA, studied in high school, in the same way my father did, afraid of blacklisting and losing his job? How can I understand the slavery period in the USA as black people do? In the effort to make Miral a movie about a particular set of personal stories, the historical setting may have been allowed to be no more than cardboard.
I have never made a film (or told a complex story) and so I don’t know how well a writer or screen-play writer can foresee the disappointments that you have had in the finished product. It seems a shame that someone like you was not asked to advise. The problems may, for all I know have been because Schnabel wanted the film to be “acceptable” to American (Jewish) audiences (and you complain of this). Had the film included all you wanted it would have been more gripping, certainly to you, probably to anyone seeing the film, but also more painful — and possibly more guilt-provoking, I’m guessing, for some audiences — and maybe attacked (more than it in fact was attacked) as propaganda. Surely the author must have been available as an adviser.
In America today, the MSM does not tell the story of the settler “price-tag” terrorism against Palestinians in the OPTs and if scenes depicting such terrorism were shown (perhaps even actual footage) to an American audience, it would likely be rejected as (despicable, anti-Semitic) propaganda. Miral may have been made with an idea like this in mind.
In the end, a great disappointment for you, I have yet to see Miral.
Yes, I will see the film. It’s not going to be a blockbuster? I don’t know. But after all these years, I know when I see a picture that should break my heart and this one did, again.
Hej!
Thank you for the magnificent contribution here, Susan!
I will go see it because I don’t want it to bomb in the boxoffice and let the Palestinian-haters rejoice in its failure. But I’m not expecting too much.
Let them rejoice, they’re day is coming. No joy in that if you’ve ever found yourself painted into the corner?
Hej!
susie, when the kids were lined up @ the yard at the school i thought about amal @ the scene in mornings in jenin and thought they should have been standing there much longer and freezing.
i went with my sister and kept whispering in her ear at the beginning (‘those are the kids from dair yasin, that really happened’) until she told me to shut up.
i completely agree w/you about Miss Hind and the actress who played her so i won’t comment further on that except to say i cried at the funeral, thought of you (i knew you went to school there) and thought it was the most emotional part of the film.
i kept trying to separate my knowledge/understanding of historical events from my reaction to the film so it wouldn’t ‘color’ my opinion of the film. i kept trying to imagine ‘if i knew nothing how entertaining would i find this film?’ i had to do that repeatedly or it might have infuriated me.
i didn’t think it was fair at all (to me, to the audience) miral’s bf wasn’t hot in the least. he was nowhere as near as hot as majid. it matters. there was another actor at the table in the meeting they should have used (on the right, he stood). i liked her dad, who wouldn’t. i could say more about this but i won’t.
overall the cinematography was the best part of the film. if i blanked out all the things i would have changed about the story it did have an artsy-ness about it that was moving.
i didn’t like the messaging at the end where her bf was a traitor and then he said the israelis were their only friends and then he was murdered.
whatever. there was so little about the occupation it didn’t hardly exist. or maybe i am just so aware of it in my reality i found it sorely lacking in the film except perhaps in both the father and miss hind with their aged worry/caution/fear.
i liked her brief friendship with her cousin’s gf. i felt cheated their fatima was nowhere as beautiful and real and deep as your fatima. i think i would have liked the film better had i not read mornings in jenin. that’s probably a stupid thing to say and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense (logically) but your school scenes were better, your settings were better, you characters were a thousand times better and i couldn’t stop comparing them.
but, if a person knew nothing and just watched the film for films sake they might not have felt the loss i felt for what it could have been.
but the cinematography was gorgeous.
Excellent review, Susan. I saw the film last weekend and think you’re right on about its flaws.
Very exciting news about the possibilities for your book becoming a film. Make sure it only goes to someone you trust to do it justice.
I don’t cry anymore, because once it’s starts where does it end? But I have to say that the picture posted here of this young girl and her teacher could have been any one of my daughters and their teacher. Could this picture be more than the film?
Hej!
Could this picture be more than the film?
have you read mornings in jenin? one glimpse (ounce) of abulhawa is worth a pound of miral.
I am familiar with the Jenin diaster. It’s not new. I’m not sure what you’re asking me?
mornings in jenin is a novel by the author of this review, susan abulhawa. it is a love story and a historical novel, a masterpiece.
i am saying one photo of the author of mornings of jenin has more value than this movie.
but i still think the movie has value simply because it exists and represents palestinians as people which in itself is a milestone for hollywood.
I feel that the artist’s or writer’s foremost loyalty should be to his or her characters,
Obviously, thanks, Susan. I was a bit confused when the film merged with your memories. Maybe I should read your book?
If the acting is partly as bad as you write, maybe I better don’t go to see this film. I suffer terribly while watching bad acting.
Good luck with the contract, it probably won’t be easy in the US film industry. Script, director, actors. I happen to agree with you, that the script is the most important, but don’t underestimate the rest.
I am curious what the Hollywood version of Stieg Larsson’s Trilology will feel like. And yes, I know that’s an allusion that doesn’t quite fit the context.
Having seen “Miral,” I am still waiting for the blockbuster that will be the Palestinian equivalent of “Exodus.” That said, I am happy to report that a couple at my church, who are not activists on Israel-Palestine, made an announcement to the congregation (about 25 people) that they should see “Miral.” They were so moved by the film, the husband brought a miral flower (or something like it) together with a palm branch and placed both on the altar.
Haven’t seen the film but I’ll take Susan’s word on it. She is undoubtedly right in saying that the film showed a watered down version of what really happened to the Palestinians but on the other hand, maybe this is what didn’t kill it in its tracks to prevent it from being shown at all as we all feared would happen. Maybe it’s not as good as it could have been but perhaps it will have served as an ice breaker for better ones to see the light of day.
You ruined Miral for me, Susan! But I will go to the film to see my neighbor Hiam Abbas and to gain some insights for the filming of my book of memoirs, “A Doctor in Galilee.”
Anytime an artist or a journalist attempts to tell the western world about the reality on the ground, Israel and its defenders immediately snap into action. The first demand is always that there be “balance”. And when they say “balance” they mean telling a watered down Palestinian perspective and then for the Israeli perspective, repeating all the time-[dis]honored Hasbara about being a cottage in a jungle, about being surrounded by evil, about giving them Gaza and getting rockets in return and all that nonsense.
Why did the writers/producers feel it necessary to include the cliched Palestinian-places-bomb-in-Israeli-mall, for example?
The overwhelming majority of Palestinian resistance to the occupation has always been non-violent. When the media emphasizes the violence it creates a skewed image of the reality. So, instead of breaking-through, Miral ends up perpetuating the same tired misconceptions.
And if Palestinians are placing bombs in Israeli movie theaters merely for losing their jobs, then one could easily rush to conclude that them thar Palestinians are violent irrational anti-Semitic Muzzzlims.
If the movie producers wanted to remain true to reality, they should have allotted each political action screen time proportional to that act’s frequency in reality. Thus, the home demolition scene vs. the bomb-placement scene are clearly skewed. Given the sheer number of Palestinian homes Israel has demolished, a fair minded person would expect the producers to create a mini-story around the act of demolition, including children running as they gather their belongings and men and women sobbing in desperation. In short, create a credible and realistic depiction of the atmosphere prevalent during a home demolition.
The bomb scene certainly did not need to include visuals. Writers could have easily worked that into the storyline as part of a newscast heard by one of the characters on the radio or some such.
But, if the producers felt an urge to personify and humanize the Israeli side at the expense of realistically depicting Palestinian suffering and Israeli military policies of oppression, then the movie has failed.
I too was disappointed with Miral.
From the opening scene I was bothered. There was the scene of Jewish migration into Palestine and Jewish celebration of the creation of Israel. I waited thinking I’ve seen Schnabel and Rula’s interviews she is like me, a Palestinian wanting the world to know our story and suffering. After this Israel 1948 celebration scene they will show our story, they will show a scene juxtaposing the cost to Palestinians, they will show the Nakba, they will, they will! Oh my! They didn’t! I was disappointed. Then I thought THEY. WILL. SHOW. IT. just at a better and more opportune time in the film. That time never came. That was a HUGE letdown for me.
I went home frustrated how could they do that? There were numerous other disappointments. I felt as if the Palestinian story or character was not allowed to develop and sit with the audience, allowing viewers to take in the story and context. Instead the Palestinian story and characters were often counteracted with so many negatives and stereotypes that if you even managed to be drawn into their dialogue or actions what swiftly followed was a counter against Palestinian empathy/ context which acts to neutralize the viewer or even worse mimics Zionist stereotypes about Palestinians.
I went home unable to sleep. I was upset at Schnabel and felt upset that Rula’s story was dwarfed by this man’s film. If anything it made me want to read the book to see how much was left out.
And I too thought, wow Salt of This Sea was a better made film and it was an honest portrayal of the Palestinian experience.
Something that concerns me about our stories being told or financed by others is that Hasbara 2.0 prevails. Hasbara 2.0 tells some of the Palestinian story but ALWAYS counteracts any development of attachment/ empathy for Palestinians with speech acts full of stereotypes and negatives distancing you at just the right moment in the plot. Hasbara forbids empathy and engagement with the Palestinian story and characters, we’re only allowed to be viewed as terrorists, oppressors or victims. Blah, blah, blah.
Thank you for this very informative review.
One detail you write: “it often felt like the characters were created to serve as mere vehicles to deliver a political message.”
But that is the case with every mainstream and semi-mainstream movie for the last decades. For instance, most romantic movies are not about love and its emotions, but about role models and the promotion of consumerism. No need to elaborate on war movies.
The only pro in mainstream movies is, as you indicated, some kind of acceptance as human beings bij the big society, and large numbers of viewers.