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PRIVATE Send This Review to a Friend
One of the most involving films of the 2005 New Directors/New Films series, offered by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, was “Private,” directed by Saverio Costanzo, also a co-writer of the screenplay along with Sayed Qashua, Camilla Costanzo and Alessio Cremonini. The film has now gone into commercial release.
At first “Private” promises to be another rant against Israel when for security reasons Israeli soldiers occupy a Palestinian home in a disputed area. The family is divided. The angry father insists on staying to protest the occupation by holding his ground instead of moving out as the Israelis suggest. There are differing viewpoints on the part of his children. A particularly militant daughter wants to fight.
But soon it is clear that the film is not an anti-Israel tract but is developing into something more, a powerful metaphor for the divided land and the problems that befall both Israelis and Palestinians. The family must stay in one part of the house, and the upstairs, where the Israeli soldiers are stationed, is off limits. The daughter takes to creeping up and spying on the Israeli soldiers, and we see the human side of the soldiers who are just doing their duty. It is the side that the young Palestinian woman gets to know too.
This gives her an education about the opposition, and the film turns into an examination of the situation that must somehow be peacefully resolved. Tension is high throughout the film, but the director is clearly on the side of finding a way to live in harmony, yet doesn’t flinch from dramatizing the every-day confrontations that can become chilling and dangerous.
The excellent cast includes Lior Miller, Mohammad Bakri, Tomer Russo, Areeen Omari, Hend Ayoub, and Sarah Hamzeh, among others. From Typecast Releasing.
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