The Time That Remains
An intensely personal look at life in Israel for Palestinians, Elia Suleiman returns with his third film.
An intensely personal look at life in Israel for Palestinians, Elia Suleiman returns with his third film, following 2002's Divine Intervention.
Suleiman, now 49, uses his father's diaries and his mother's letters to create an intimate, and not overtly political, look at the conflict. Beautifully framed, his camera captures a staggering amount of tenderness in a film that relies on simple imagery and meticulous detail.
Told in four episodic chapters, Suleiman's family is depicted from 1948 up until the present day. After a bleakly dry opening, portraying Nazereth's handing over to the state of Israel, we are shown the changing attitudes of the men and women of the land in character-driven vignettes. Most touching are the neighbour who regularly attempts to set himself alight in protest, and the teacher getting flustered at a school screening of Spartacus. The dashing Saleh Bakri is Fuad, Elia's father. A noble man, he arms himself when the occupation starts, and but then preoccupies himself with looking after his family. Bakri is an actor born to be onscreen, and with silence a notable part of Suleiman's style, his power to captivate saves the film from its more ponderous moments.
The director plays himself in the final chapter, a solemn, frustratingly ghost-like observer to his mother's twilight years. The once vibrant woman is now a widow sitting on her balcony in deep reflection, and the viewer is invited to join her in contemplating a lifetime of civil unrest and hostility.
As ambitious and heartfelt as The Time That Remains is, Suleiman's fragmented piece is hard work: for every acutely observed moment of black humour, there is one that drifts by. And for a film that strives to depict a real story of life under occupation, it's strangely uninvolving. It stands as a fascinating series of snapshots through history of a endlessly tiring situation for millions of families.
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