Gaza mon amour

This film did a brilliant job depicting day to day life in Gaza, from the experience of Israeli drones constantly buzzing about to the nuances of a resistance movement ruling the territory and all its corruption and authoritarianism. While shame peeks out once in a while to demonstrate how it can rule people's lives, the resilience and strength of a people shows, and a tale of elderly love unfolds.

This must have been some kind of vanity project for the writer and director. The dialogue appears to be made up on the fly, and the story is just well.......silly! There is actually no real story here at all. The characters completely lack depth and the actors bring very little to building any depth to them. To be fair, the script is so bad, that they really had very little with which to work. The first couple of minutes there is no dialogue, just a lot of gazing into space or smoking. If a movie like this is going to be made, at least make sure that there's actually a story to be told against the background of what is current day Gaza.

Lacked any character depth, very boring development of a storyline, and hardly any mention of the occupation that Gazans live under, seemed like an anti hamas short film at times...

I'll stick my neck out and say that I don't see how this wry comedy's delicate touch could have been bettered. There was just enough of the horror of external oppression from the Zionist Entity whose attacks and drones destroyed normal life and internal oppression from the agents of the state who were also trying to keep their heads above water in the face of the Entity's crippling siege and blockade.

The music needs to be mentioned as a particular attribute reminiscent of a Hollywood film at times when scenes involving Issa and Siham were playing out. And I really appreciated the times when we saw characters watching or listening to greats such as Abdul Halim Hafez singing "Takht el Maa" which was truly what someone of Issa's age would be listening to as well as the classic Egyptian films favoured by Siham.

Minor characters were finely drawn particularly Issa's interfering sister who was exactly what I'd have expected her to be. And a special mention for Samir who was the typical ground-down young man who would spend a fortune to get out to Europe.

The Gaza Strip is a police state and there's no doubt about that. What else could it be with the continual attacks on it and the corruption engendered by Mossad? We see this in the film that portrays its legion of informers and turncoats such as the antiques dealer.

I'd recommend this as a film that shows a reality leavened by lightness and the optimism of the human spirit. Life goes on and people make the best of it. What a pity that they have to suffer such indignities in the first place though.

The message of the movie is very deep despite being a comedy. What I absolutely loved about the movie is, unlike other movies that focus on the sad aspect of the lives of Gazans and Palestinians in general, Gaza Mon Amour sheds light on the same reality with one important difference. It delicately and brilliantly succeeds in capturing the subtle and fleeting sense of hope, a sense I have always been crediting to Gazans who despite the stinking smell of death and "impotence" have the courage to dream and start a new every second and every minute. Best movie i've seen in the past 4 years.