The Time That Remains

"The Time that Remains" is by far one of the most well-made and powerful Arab movies (and specifically Palestinian) to date. Elia Suleiman tackles one of the most prominent issues in the Arab world with beautiful imagery, nostalgia, music, and the silent word.

I usually do not admire having a director act in his/her own film, but Elia Suleiman is his films, they are part of him and his appearance in them as the silent observer simply attacks the emotions and makes the viewer a part of his own life. "The Time that Remains" basically chronicles the life of his mother and father and their 'silent' resistance through the turmoil of the Israeli invasion of Palestine from 1948 till today.

What is so powerful about this film is that how the viewer (and especially an Arab viewer) can go through a history of conflict so smoothly with much joy and come out with a striking view of this history. Suleiman shows will all simplicity how the cause still loves, without blood, with few words, but with a lot of emotions and things to say. The choice of music (classical Arabic songs) make the viewer understand what the beauty of being an Arab is, and how this beauty is slowly fading... fading into a lack of identity.

I watched Suleiman's previous film "Divine Intervention" after watching this one and realized that we do have an Arab auteur director in our midst; his playful style and cartoonish characters all the more strengthen his cause and keep on his silent resistance.

A pure must-see!

This may very well be the first film that I have watched by a Palestinian filmmaker, and it was a good one. It deals quite a bit with the oppression of the Palestinian Arabs by Israeli authorities over the years, beginning with the takeover of Palestinian territory in 1948. This follows the life of a family in Nazareth. Much of the story is told quietly and at a distance; the dialogue is minimal. That does not mean this is grim or didactic, not at all. Regular helpings of physical, stage comedy lighten what is a serious story. There are several things that went on that I did not understand - the behavior of certain characters was mystifying, and why do they sometimes speak in English? But that did not ruin things - this is a fine film overall.

Sometimes, life throws at us things that over the years become too big to comprehend. Such are natural disasters, pandemic diseases, nuclear explosions, and wars.

In his movie, released in 2009, Elia Suleiman sets on a journey to explore the genre of black comedy, so as to reveal to us the secret of coping with a tragedy of which the magnitude is overwhelming.

It is the nature of human mind to always look for some form of normality, maybe a little static, but nevertheless, a feeling that your bases are covered, your life has a purpose and your entire existence in a certain place and at a certain time is not meaningless. This is what we, humans, do when gun battles, tanks and security surges are suddenly a persistent part of the daily routine. And this is exactly the focus of The Time That Remains. Half a century of tragedy is squeezed into an hour and a half of a laconic and precisely targeted shock therapy.

Despite its smoothness and an accurately placed hint of suspense, this movie doesn't truly give you a moment of rest. There's no wallowing in self-pity here, no destructive mind blowing imagery; even the garden of executions is so well carved into the texture of the surrounding neighborhood that it appears natural despite your mind telling you that what you are looking at is a yelling contradiction to what is humanly acceptable.

There's also no conflict, in a traditional sense of the word, around which the story would evolve. All there is is a deceptively distanced and only seemingly uninvolved bitterly comic narration about generations of painful struggle to remain human in a filled with nonsense reality, where even a direct participant finds himself merely an observer, trying to just be.

The movie strikes as grotesque, largely satirical, very reflective and detailed. This effect doesn't wear off till the very last scene.

When telling the truth becomes a taboo, the sensationalism of this movie is found in the peculiar way of drawing attention to what should not be discussed, because the subject makes us uncomfortable.

Elia Suleiman resorts to various means offered by cinematography in order to break the unbreakable, to jump over the wall.

There are no loud graphic scenes in this movie, nothing at all that an adult cannot handle; yet, it is heavily loaded with incredible emotions that run deep in the film's canvas, leaving you gulp for air at times.

When deciding whether or not to watch this movie, don't hesitate. Just watch. And prepare lots of tissues, even if you are known for having a thick skin.

This film, like most Elia Suleiman films, uses real time, absurdity, symbolism and scenes from Suleiman's life, at the same time portraying history and current events. As typical of Suleiman it is also a very personal film, the most personal of the ones I've seen (Divine Intervention, Chronicle of a Disappearance). It is a reminiscence of his family from the time of 1948, when the state of Israel was created on the land called Palestine, to the present day.

The film covers events including the war of 1948, the death of Nasser, the resistance against Israeli occupation, and the deterioration of Palestinian society in recent times. It is filled with Suleiman's typical tragicomic scenes of interaction between Israelis and Palestinians. It is a very sad film, however, the humor that runs through the film, and the suspense that is created by filming in real time, keep the film engaging even though like Suleiman's other films the pace is somewhat slow.

This film has a very distinguished style and sense of humor for such a dark topic on the conflict of Israel and Palestine. It reflects three generations of the conflict through the perspective of Es (the protagonist) who plays a child, a teenager and an elder man. He never speaks perhaps as a metaphor representing the voiceless. One thing I was also able to appreciate as an Egyptian audience, the Egyptian songs by Laila Mourad and Mohamed Abdel Wahab, as well as some Egyptian news references, like on the death of Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970. Something that a Western audience may not at all experience in the same way a Middle Eastern or Arabic Audience would, is almost like a cheery on the icing for people of that culture, a little gift made exclusively for us, that only we can feel nostalgic about and understand the reference to that culture and era. This film portrays the issue as a gray issue and does no only show the oppressive and inhuman acts of the Israeli Militants, like when they throw Es' father off a cliff. A few scenes show a very human side to them as well, like in the scene when they call out to stop a dance party because of curfew, the first idea that came to mind was the cultural deprivation, but when the military figures start dancing to the music track, it highlights that both sides unite by liking the same music. In another scene, when Israeli military move furniture items onto a truck, the listen to music and smoke cigarettes, somehow very subtly reveals them as ordinary military base figures on duty, it does not look so different from Egyptian bases. He also does not glorify all Palestinians as victims. We get to see a Palestinian who joins the Israeli military and is perceived as a traitor, and called out on it, but he explains later how he needs the work to feed his family. Another very interesting portrayal of how a land under an occupation becomes so natural and part of the backdrop and landscape of the environment, like in the scene when a guy on the cell phone who walks back and forth is pointed at with a tank tracking his every move. The guy does not react at all. This film had a very promising subtle message that the issue is gray and complicated and it seems to be a wish to focus on the good sides in both sides and bringing people together.