Avuncular American

The Time That Remains: Palestinians, Israelis & Israeli Arabs

Had Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh ("Palestinian Walks") written the screenplay of The Time That Remains (poster at left, from the official site for the French release), the dwindling time might refer to the chance to hike the hills of Palestine before the Israelis completely cover them in concrete.  Or maybe the time remaining before Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman succeeds in expelling Arab Israelis from the land of their birth.

But the title of Israeli-Arab director/screenwriter Elia Suleiman's highly personal view of being an Arab in Israel may apply to family relations as much as Palestinian-Israeli relations, as in "appreciate your parents while they are still around," the theme so touchingly sketched in the recent Japanese film Still Walking.  In Suleiman's Nazareth of 1948 to the present, we see the Arab-Israeli conflict as experienced by and recounted to a boy growing up in a Palestinian family that has stayed on - in what has become part of Israel.

When I first saw the film's poster, I imagined that the little boy was getting a scolding from his father (it's actually the school headmaster; little Elia, it seems, is developing a reputation as a political dissident).  No, Suleiman's father Fuad (actor Saleh Bakri dominates the first third of the film as the young resistance fighter) is portrayed as a strong, silent type, who is left for dead after his capture in the 1948 fighting, and who spends the rest of his life under a cloud of Israeli suspicion that he hasn't abandoned his Palestinian nationalism.

We never see Suleiman-père old and frail.  He's the reliable go-to man for family and neighbors in a Nazareth left adrift, cut off from their cousins across the Green Line.  At the local school, children sing patriotic songs (but for which country?) in Hebrew and Arabic.

Though political themes are ever present (what honest film on the subject could avoid politics?), The Time That Remains is at times black comedic, and more than one reviewer (including Suleiman himself) has seen shades of Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati in the absurdity of Israeli-Jewish and Israeli-Arab relations.

The cinema in France where we saw "le Temps qu'il reste" distributed a very helpful flyer with a reprint from the Nouvel Observateur interview with Elia Suleiman, where he explains to Pascal Mérigeau that his novel view of the last sixty-plus years is his alone - and is not a documentary.  We read that "at 17 years old, I was accused of being a Communist sympathizer, and had 24 hours to make up my mind," which is how the young Suleiman ended up in London, which led to New York, which led to Paris...  This episode is alluded to in the film, when we see a teenaged Elia getting caught up in the first "Land Day" demonstrations to protest Israeli expropriation of its Arab citizens' land.

For objective students of the Arab-Israel conflict, The Time That Remains should stand up well to scrutiny.  For connoisseurs of the absurd, the film will show a collection of war and post-war situations that could be fodder for Ari Folman should Waltz With Bashir ever get a prequel.

In keeping with Suleiman's ambivalence over matters of nationality, statelessness, and patriotism, The Time That Remains was presented at Cannes 2009 as neither an Israeli nor a Palestinian film, but a product of France, Belgium, Italy, and the United Kingdom.  Suleiman, the "present absentee" Israeli/Palestinian/Expatriate and on-camera narrator of his own film, looks on silently at his life and gives us a rare look at the conflicted world of Arab-Israelis.

Paris (and Chateaulin) Liberated - August 1944

Since the big D-Day bash in June, when President Barack Obama honored the 65th anniversary of the Normandy landings, the commemorations have been either very local or just forgotten.  This week we were reminded that D-Day didn’t mean the end of the fighting in France in 1944; Paris was liberated by its own Resistance fighters, with big help over the horizon by the US Army, of course.

In Brittany, where we stayed for most of August, the fighting was still going on 65 years ago.  The Brest “Pocket” would not be reduced until mid-September, and other German redoubts – especially the submarine bases of Lorient and St. Nazaire – would hold out until the surrender of Germany in May 1945.

Our little market town of Chateaulin, on the Nantes-Brest Canal, was liberated by French partisans when the German garrison left in early August.  That American armored vehicle in the photo above left (courtesy Le Doaré Archives) tooling along the Canal looks like it’s being piloted by Free French forces.

Other partisans in the “maquis” didn’t have it so easy.  Upriver (this section of the Canal is formed by the river Aulne), you can visit a recent memorial to fighters (mostly Breton, but also Belgian and Soviet) killed in an ambush in spring 1944 when their position was divulged to the Germans.  It’s hard to imagine today, as you soak up the sun on an idyllic island in the river, that the place saw bloody reprisals in your parents’ or grandparents’ time.

On the way back to Brussels, overnight in Falaise, of WW II "Pocket" or "Gap" fame, "the decisive engagement in the Battle of Normandy,"  according to Wikipedia.  Another August 1944 anniversary.

Pranzo di ferragosto - Roman Mid-August Lunch With Mamma

A sort of "Big Night" for homebodies longing for a memorable midday meal, "Pranzo di ferragosto" ("Mid-August Lunch," official site) won best film at the 2008 Venice Film Festival and other festival awards.  If I told you the film features four lovely Italian ladies, you are going to start thinking (1) Monica Bellucci; (2)...  If I told you that the actresses - who all appear to be first-timers in film - are at least over 80 years old, your interest might waver.  But don't succumb to ageism, for this film is, among many other things, an ode to youth, or at least remaining young at heart.  Poster at left: Cineocchio.org.

Gianni Di Gregorio's film has another inspired casting choice: the director as the lead actor, playing "Gianni," a fifty-something soft-alcoholic bachelor who takes good care of his mother, played by Valeria De Francisis, who either has a steel-reinforced blond permanent, or goes to bed in her platinum wig.  Guffaws would be out of place in this comedy, but there is plenty of material for wry chuckles.

Take the story line of this 76 minute film: Gianni and Mamma live in a pleasant old apartment block in downtown Rome, but have fallen behind - way behind - in their condo fees; they have had their keys to the elevator taken from them.  "Who needs an elevator anyway?" rationalizes Gianni to the understanding building manager, who has a plan to help the dutiful son and his mother.  It involves "Mamma sitting" for his octogenarian mother for the weekend of Assumption.  And that's just the beginning of Gianni's special weekend.

Note for readers unfamiliar with European observance (especially in the nominally Catholic countries) of Assumption Day, which always falls on 15 August: in a month already known for its city-emptying tradition of mass exodus to the beach, those left behind on 15 August have to fend for themselves.  Especially true when you have to prepare an impromptu feast for four (yes, the octogenarian count has risen) hungry ladies.

Di Gregario has, in a light-hearted but not silly or condescending way, combined in this short gem two bases of Italian society: the filial devotion of sons for their mothers (we are not told what the daughters-in-law think), and the unending quest to eat well - even when sharpers make the most of their mid-August monopoly on the wine supply.

See "Pranzo di ferragosto" for a midsummer Italian treat whenever it comes to your cinema or DVD distributor.  We saw it, appropriately, in provincial France on Assumption Day weekend.

Note:  This review also appears in European Film Awards Reviews and Picturenose.

Earth To America: Chill On Health Care

Breaking my internet connection-less silence for a brief moment from a cyber cafe, to reassure my fellow American readers: universal health care is good for your health.

My inspiration for writing this truism comes from a glimpse - and it was only that; I am rather cut off from news sources at my current location - of poor Senator Arlen Spector fending off rabid reactionaries at a recent town hall meeting on health care reform.  This item was presented on the evening French TV news as another example of the American eccentricity.  Because for French people, the only argument about health care is how to maintain its already world class position.  It's a given that everyone must have access to that care.

TPM recently carried a post by Jane B., an American in Paris who recounted her recent (and I take it, ongoing) encounter with cancer.  Her real life account is another attempt to reassure Americans that their fears about supposed Stalinization of health care are unfounded.

The truth is that in many developed countries, people take health care, and its universal provision, for granted.  It's just not a matter for debate - in Britain, even the opposition Conservatives consider the National Health Service to be a political third rail.  Whatever the horror stories about long waits in Britain for NHS specialists, this much I know: if you are sick there, you will be treated, no questions asked.

As in other European countries, France has a national health insurance card, an attempt to rein in on needless care (the country consumes pills at an unhealthy rate).  Politicians fret about the "hole" in the social security budget (of which health care is a part), the result of people gaming the system of benefits.  But cheaters are everywhere, and stronger safeguards need to be instituted.

In the US, the gaming of the current hodgepodge of health care appears to be largely an insurance industry specialty.  Create a maze of coverage options and insurance policies, interpose non-medical gatekeepers between patient and doctor, then impose horrendous paperwork requirements on the corner medical practice.  In the name of what?  Certainly not better health care results.

Back in Brussels, here is the situation when we need to see our neighborhood doctor: we go to her office, she gleans useful information during an initial chat, performs her examination, goes to her computer where our files are stored, and prints out prescription and receipt after charging us her fee (much cheaper than her US counterparts).  No secretary, no mountains of paper folders in some sixties-era "retrieval system," just our doctor and her computer.  According to a recent Business Week article, only 17% of American doctors have such an electronic records retrieval system.

What's scary about the current debate in the US is not President Obama's proposal, but the know-nothingism that he has inspired.  Good health care for all should be in everyone's interest, right?  Then why are we even debating about the very notion of universality?  Check a little and you'll find that the manipulators, the reductionists of the absurd, are those with a vested interest in the status quo.  Namely the medical insurance complex and their lobbyists and paid legislators.

Spurious issues have occupied the national consciousness before, but arguing over what other countries have long accepted as a human right shows how much the US is out of sync with the world.  It's not that difficult, people.  Follow Dr. Obama's prescription, and get a reality check.  For your own health.

On the Road, Again

Estimated percentage of all existing blogs that have not been updated in four months: 94

Harper's Index, August (source: Technorati)

If that is the case, I'm already way ahead of the pack, so if I slack off while heading to places without high speed - or any - connections, you'll forgive me, right?

This being Europe, and the month of August, you can expect a bit of a slowdown.  At least I'm putting up this note on the door of Avuncular American, which is more than the local bakery did when it shut down this summer.

Intermittent blogging may occur, as connection opportunities and stories present themselves.  Full blogging to resume in a few weeks.

Ben Hopkins' The Market: Bazaar Trade 101

Pazar - Bir ticaret masali, the latest film (shot in Turkish) by English director Ben Hopkins, has been given the title of The Market: A Tale of Trade (official site) for its international release.  This is trade at its most basic, a bazaar of barter, seen through the adventures of hero Mihram ("Saint Mihram," as he's called by cynics who doubt his ability to stay relatively honest, is admirably incarnated by Tayanç Ayaydin, a 30 year old Turkish actor who, by the way, can do a great bearded Jack Nicholson impersonation).

There is muted humor in The Market, as befits a director whose work includes a title like 37 Uses For a Dead Sheep - Ben Hopkins' 2006 documentary on nomads who populate another corner of eastern Turkey.   The locations are suitably bleak, appropriate for a setting along the border of what used to be the fault line between the Soviet Union and NATO's easternmost member.

Though the story of a smalltime trader on the make is timeless, Hopkins adds an extra layer of authenticity by situating it in the early 90s.  The USSR has recently broken up, neighboring Azerbaijan is dismantling (read pillaging) its Soviet infrastructure and dabbling in "the market" (read mafia) and Turkey is beginning to install a mobile phone network.  The US dollar (cash) is the preferred financial instrument.  Opportunity beckons for Mihram.

The Market: A Tale of Trade offers choice illustrations of many "capitalist" sub themes:

• Everything Has Its Price
• Business Is Business
• Information Is Power

Mihram is both an advocate for and a victim of all of the above.  If your pickup truck is your office, and if items on either side of the border have different "supply and demand" curves, you probably need a good business plan.

If your business plan's major elements are prayer (including a shaky vow to lay off the liquor) and gambling, or is too complicated to explain to your wife, then its chances of succeeding are, shall we say, aleatory.  Luck is a helpful element in any business, but when your multiple commitments, based on the same wad of cash, start to unravel, you have to be luckier than Mihram's track record would indicate.

You can enjoy The Market on many levels: excellent acting by unknown (in the West, anyway) new faces; a feel for life in those indeterminate border zones where rules are something for the books; an allegory for how all of our lives are influenced by "market forces."  Ben Hopkins' "Director's Statement" is definitely worth reading, as it traces how he came to write the screenplay "that dealt with my conflicting feelings about capitalism - my admiration for its creativity and innovation, and my cynicism that it can ever deliver its benefits without inequality and exploitation."

After months of Madoff and banks, bailouts, and bonuses, it's refreshing that Ben Hopkins provides a look at trade, one of the very basics of society's economic relations.  But who other than Hopkins would have thought to stage a timely and timeless capitalist drama on the dusty steppes of Central Asia?

Belgium & Bolivia: Surfeits Of Democracy?

Other than a dusty bilateral maritime trade treaty involving guano (in 1836 both countries were in the first bloom of independence: Belgium was only 6 years old, and Bolivia 11, and it still had a coastline), I don't suppose there is a whole lot linking the two countries.

But this morning on the BBC, I learned of President Evo Morales' plan to grant autonomy based on ethnic lines (read "indigenous population," from which he hails).  Many countries have such arrangements, and Bolivia no doubt has much to atone for in its treatment of its Indian population, who constitute the majority.  But here's the catch: apparently this will create what amounts to five layers of government.

This is where Belgium comes in.  Belgium is probably a world leader in layers of government, which at times can border on the surreal.  There is the national (federal) parliament in Brussels, the city which is also home to a Flemish regional assembly that doubles as a body for the Dutch-speaking speaking community.  Then there's the Brussels Capital Region assembly, and finally the Francophone community's parliament.  Not to be confused with the parliament of the French-speaking region of Wallonie, which sits in Namur.  I may have left something out.

Oh yes, provinces.  Actually, I've been living on and off in Belgium for upwards of a decade, and other than ubiquitous road signs announcing the limit of this or that province, I had never thought of them as jurisdictions, with administrations and therefore administrators.  But yes, Belgium probably leads the world in the number of people on the payroll of one level of government or another.

Don't get me wrong: I am a former public servant, and see more of a role for government in addressing society's ills than most of my compatriots.  But there are limits to representative democracy, and there's a reason that the United States is a republic rather than a direct democracy.  You can have too much of a good thing.

Even in the US, there are way too many jurisdictions.  Just look at a map of, say, the Miami area, and you'll see the city of Miami, neighboring Miami Beach, and Dade County, but also a bunch of mini-municipalities that insist on having their own government structure, replete with a police force where, I bet you, the chief of police has four stars on his lapel or shoulder, in the best tradition of some foreign armies, where a sergeant can have as many stars as General Petraeus.

So, all power to the Bolivians, but maybe they should rethink those extra layers of government.  They haven't done much good for the Belgians.