THE TEACHER
Directed by Farah Nabulsi
115 min., Cocoon Films and Native Liberty, 2024
While the focus now is on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, Farah Nabulsi’s film The Teacher describes life in Palestine’s occupied West Bank.
Based on a true story, it opens with Basem (played by Saleh Bakri) driving to his school. By the side of the road is an occupation soldier cradling his rifle, a harbinger of things to come.
In his classroom the teacher favors Yacoub, recently released from prison, and his brother Adam, respectively the “muscle” and the “brains” between the two. Basem chastises the former for his poor work, though he knows that after two years in prison it is hard to put the past away.
Prison is almost a rite of passage for these boys, as it was for Basem, who like many others learned the value of education while inside. Like the formerly enslaved Frederick Douglass, who defied the law against slaves learning how to read, Basem knew that literacy held the key to defining individual as well as national history, especially as a counterpoint to Israel’s official story.
Despite misgivings, Basem befriends a British social worker, Lisa, who is attached to the school. He knows that she can’t possibly understand the reality of his life, but he believes that he has a right to life, so he accedes to a short-lived but beautiful relationship.
Almost as a test, they soon witness the demolition of Yacoub’s house by the Zionist army, an act that quite rightly horrifies his friend but that Basem sees as routine. “It was just their turn,” he explains, a clarification that at first glance appears to be an attempt at normalization but, in reality, is an effort to keep his anger under control.
In a flashback, the film reveals why he is so intent on protecting these two students. His own son was imprisoned for merely attending a demonstration. Tried as an adult, Yusef received an 8-year sentence, but he died from exposure to the cold, compounded by the guards’ refusal to allow him treatment.
Several other film reviewers focused on what they saw as fragmentation, too many sub-plots that are not seamlessly brought together. For example, Peyton Robinson charges that “Nabulsi’s film touches the heart but loses grip on the mind as it journeys to juggle more subplots than its hands can handle.”
What Robinson calls “a fractured mosaic of ideas” is what life is like for many Palestinians, whether in the West Bank, the ’48, or Gaza. People there have very little control over the trajectory of their journey as they are often in and out of prison, some incarcerated for long stretches of time, not to mention the genocide and ethnic cleansing that has long been taking place, leaving the occupied with not much to hold onto but the fragility of their lives at this moment.
As of this date, there are approximately 10,000 Palestinians incarcerated in occupation prisons, according to the rights group Addameer. There the suffering of prisoners has escalated even more amid genocide and unprecedented harsh treatment.
Given this background, the film’s alleged fragmentation makes perfect sense, especially if it is put into a specific historical and personal context.
In the occupied West Bank, where the film was made, everyday life is fragmented by checkpoints and illegal settlers who are committing daily violence that Palestinians must endure.
Today, the situation is even worse, as Israel places the West Bank on lockdown, closing entrances to cities and villages with makeshift barriers. As the situation worsens, the Israelis hope it will allow them to annex more land on which to build additional illegal settlements, much like those visible in the film.
In an interview with Amy Goodman, Bakri addresses this issue quite well. “We are scattered all around, not able or not allowed to gather and to work together, to learn from each other, to tell our story in a way, in a perfect way, in a way that — in a complete way.”
His goal, then, is to dismantle these obstacles so that Palestinians can come together—”living their life, doing art, doing music together, telling their stories to the world, to themselves, learning from each other and teaching the world.”
That is his struggle, and the collective struggle of his people, so that someday those “fractured mosaic[s]” that Robinson describes will be joined.
In the making of this film, Nabulsi explains that shooting in the West Bank was never easy as the crew had to contend with checkpoints as well as the ever-present watchtowers that created their own sense of fear.
Basem’s loss of his own son explains his desire to protect these boys, while Lisa provides some semblance of normal family life. She cannot possibly understand, but she accepts him for who he is—a man who has few choices in life compared to her but who is adamant about making the best of what he has. He is an example of “sumud” (steadfastness) that has symbolized Palestinian resilience since the Nakba.
No sooner has their house been demolished than Yacoub sees nearby settlers set fire to their trees. As he runs to save them, an elder settler clearly shoots him with his gun. Though Lisa recommends a prominent Israeli lawyer, the killer will probably go free. There is no justice for Palestinians under the Occupation.
Again, Basem understands this, Lisa doesn’t. They are worlds apart. To prove his point, he tells her the story of his mother, who slapped a settler after the woman knocked a basket of olives from her hands.
His mother’s eyes reflected “all the fury of the world,” Basem said. In response, Zionist soldiers tied her to their car, then dragged her behind, stopping only because an Israeli activist yelled to let her go.
The moral of the story: Even well-meaning Israeli advocates have more privilege than Palestinians, so there can never be equality between the two under the current system. Thus, Nabulsi undermines any notion that the film promotes normalization, i.e. the view that there can be co-existence between the occupied and the occupier without dismantling the Zionist regime.
This point is made clear when Basem agrees to hide the American hostage that the resistance hopes to trade in exchange for 1000 Palestinian prisoners. In this scenario, Nabulsi is echoing the true story of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was set free in 2011 in return for 1027 Palestinian detainees.
At first glance this might be interpreted as two fathers who are grieving over the loss of their respective sons.
Indeed, writing for Variety, Siddhant Adlakha suggests that “these two stories, of fathers trying to liberate younger generations from the violence they face, work nicely in tandem,” when in fact they do not. One son joins sides with the occupier, while the other protests with the resistance. One child happily joins the Israeli forces, the other has no alternative but to die in prison.
The prisoner exchange also contextualizes the different values placed on individual lives: one Jewish American life equals that of 1000 Palestinians, an inequality that explains why the court decides in favor of the settler who murdered a Palestinian boy for trying to save his trees.
From there the plot moves quickly to its logical conclusion. In the end, Adam takes Basem’s place, while Basem assumes responsibility for Adam’s murder of the settler after the latter stabs him with a knife.
Basem couldn’t save his son but he gives Adam another chance at life. While the student is shown living in Adam’s house, reading his books, even wearing the teacher’s old familiar shirt, Basem ends up once again in prison, but a shot of the light coming in through a window in his cell implies that he, too, is not defeated.
In the interview with Goodman, Bakri explains that his work involves turning tragedy into creative energy, and this he sees as “a form of resistance that in the same time it cures …our souls.”
In Palestinian cultural production—whether literary or cinematic—there is almost always hope, for without that there is no cause for resisting the Zionist regime.
