Paradise Now

Perhaps to its detriment, and likely due to the rancid politics of a still raw post 9/11 world, this eschews any real consideration of the Palestine/Israel conflict (glad that issue went away!) and instead views Said and Khaled’s psychological ruminations and considerations as they approach the terrifying and insidious task at hand. The wilful lack of engagement with the political climate does make the central drama a little facile and superficial (with a fall-back on religious belief and motivation a further sweetening of the pot), but in terms of a main-stream, ultimately Oscar nominated effort, I’m not sure it would be possible to be any further scathing or probing. Not so much performed as inhabited by Nashif and Suliman, and the inclusion of Azabal making a weird triangle, gives this a raw verisimilitude that I think Abu-Assad might be a little too timid to properly explore.