Palestinian Cinema

Exploring Palestinian cinema from both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives, Gertz (Open Univ. and Tel Aviv Univ.) and Khleifi (Palestinian filmmaker; director, Institute of Modern Media, Al Quds Univ., Ramallah) find that as the conflict between Israel and Palestine worsens, Palestinian cinema reflects a changing and more difficult social, political, and economic environment. In the earliest Palestinian cinema (the 1970s), the individual represents an unchanging collective, its struggles, and its fate, but by the 1980s the individual has become a distinct entity. The films of the 1990s refine that approach, looking deeper at the mundane life of average Palestinians. These cinematic representations exist in dynamic opposition to Israeli character, and Palestinian cinema develops to represent this tragic relationship. The films the authors examine are well chosen: they chronicle the Palestinian effort at self-definition and preservation in the midst of continual national chaos emerges. Although the conclusions may seem obvious, two elements mark this work as seminal: the ongoing conflict makes analysis of Palestinian society and politics rare; even rarer is a concerted analytical effort by representatives of both sides. The latter, in particular, makes this volume important scholarship and (one hopes) a model for future collaboration. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers, all levels.