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Last Updated: Aug 10th, 2010 - 23:16:19 |
‘Free Zone’: movie on Mideast without borders
By Boris Bachorz
May 20, 2005, 09:22
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CANNES, France - For Israeli director Amos Gitai, the dream of seeing a Middle East freed of its borders -- both geographic and psychological - is summed up in the title of his film seen Thursday at Cannes, "Free Zone".
Filmed in Jordan the movie shows women in the region filling the screen, in no little part thanks to the involvement of Natalie Portman, the Israeli-born US actress who also features in "Star Wars: Episode III", presented last weekend at the festival.
She plays a young American of Jewish origin who accompanies an Israeli woman (Hanna Laslo) to an area in Jordan close to the Iraqi, Saudi and Syrian borders that serves as a huge outdoor car market for the troubled region.
"It's the first time I've filmed a big part of a movie in an Arab country," Gitai said, adding that he'd like to revisit the experience, maybe "in Egypt or in a north African country."
He said the Jordanian authorities met all his location requests, giving him access to the auto bazaar "Free Zone" which he presents as a space in which trade and daily interaction create closer ties between people than diplomatic initiatives.
"This place, where all the car transaction in the Middle East take place, got to me so much, it's so distant from this idea we always have of the region with barbed wire, borders, mine fields and hate, that I made it the starting point of my film," he said.
The story follows the Israeli woman as she travels to the Free Zone to be paid for an armoured vehicle she and her injured husband delivered. She takes the young American along for the trip, and eventually finds a Palestinian woman who tells her the money is no longer there.
The movie suggests the harm the Palestinians and the Israelis have suffered over the past decades; the uprooting of Palestinian families when the Jewish state was created in 1948, and the turmoil that dogs Israelis' attempts to secure a prosperous life.
Gitai said Portman's past influenced him in forming the script, notably the actress's "search for a sense of identity" and her learning of Arabic and Hebrew.
His decision to change the scenario to make women the main characters was also an expression of hope.
"I think there's a political failing, especially from politicians, from generals, from military men, which has brought a great deal of trouble. Maybe the three women in the film, with the daily, concrete dimension, are going to create a different form of relationship."
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