Films about rebels taking on a powerful state or empire are no rarity in Hollywood. The original Star Wars was made by George Lucas with the Vietnam War in mind, but featured enough spaceships and robots to evade political scrutiny.
Avatar, The Hunger Games and even the Marvel movies have performed the same function in the past few decades.
Such films are often criticised for their self-indulgence. More often than provoking serious reflection on the world, they allow western audiences to enjoy imagining themselves as plucky rebels and heroes doing battle against tyranny.
Others, however, argue that these films subtly influence public opinion on real-world events.
One recent example of a film which made people talk about Gaza is the Superman film – widely considered to be critical of Israel because it featured a villain who supposedly resembled Benjamin Netanyahu and a heroic, vaguely Middle Eastern-looking victim population facing invasion.
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The film grossed $354m in the US and $37.6m in Britain earlier this year, amid the live-streamed genocide in Gaza.
In contrast, Palestine 36 – an indie movie released by Curzon Film and playing in cinemas throughout Britain from Friday – is a breath of fresh air.
This film is about history, not fantasy, and it explicitly and fearlessly addresses that most politically incorrect of topics: Palestine.
Directed by Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir, it is the state’s submission to the Oscars this year.
It should arguably have been Britain’s, since it is a film about both British and Palestinian history.
A modern-day Battle of Algiers
The film focuses on the Palestinian revolt in the 1930s against the British Mandate, a rebellion that began peacefully but escalated into violence in response to intensifying British repression.
Amid the destruction of Gaza and settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, it is a tale for our times.
It may not surprise Palestinians, but the film is bound to shock nearly every Briton who watches it, owing to the stunning omissions from this period in the country’s history curriculum.
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The film details the crimes and duplicity of British officials in Palestine in the 1930s.
It also explores what drove many Palestinians to violent resistance.
British soldiers are shown killing innocent people and burning entire villages. Palestinian rebels are seen shooting British soldiers. A protagonist is gunned down by soldiers, but not before throwing a grenade that will blow them all up.
In one of the film’s final scenes, a young boy who has seen his family killed pulls a gun on a British soldier and shoots him dead in revenge.
At times, Palestine 36 bears resemblance to The Battle of Algiers, the legendary 1966 film about the war of independence against French rule in Algeria, which likewise coolly depicted both colonial and anti-colonial violence without sugar-coating the brutality.
Much of Palestine 36 was filmed in the occupied West Bank itself. The visuals are stunning, particularly the sweeping shots of rebels in keffiyehs galloping with their guns on horseback across the countryside.
Colourised archival footage of the period appears throughout the film, lending it an added feel of authenticity.
The British Mandate
By 1936, Palestine had been under British colonial mandate for nearly 20 years. Between 1922 and 1940, as a result of Jewish migration out of Europe, the Jewish population in Palestine grew more than fivefold to over 467,000, around one third of the total population.
Jewish land ownership more than doubled from 60,100 to 155,200 hectares. The period saw the British facilitating land grabs and evicting entire villages.
In April 1936, the Arab National Committee in Nablus announced a general strike against mandatory rule. It was brutally suppressed by British forces.
This led to what is commonly known as the Arab revolt from 1936 to 1939, a period of armed resistance that saw the British declare martial law in Palestine.
The film stars multiple well-known actors, including Jeremy Irons as the British high commissioner, Liam Cunningham as another British official and Succession’s Hiam Abbass as a Palestinian villager turned rebel.
The story follows Yusuf (Karim Daoud Anaya), a villager who works in Jerusalem for a wealthy, liberal magazine editor, and the editor’s wife, writer Khouloud (Yasmine Al Massri), who publishes her articles under a male pseudonym.
Yusuf starts off apolitical but eventually becomes a rebel in response to British atrocities.
One of Palestine 1936’s great strengths is its sophisticated depiction of diversity and divisions among Palestinians.
The editor, Amir, is a member of the Muslim Association, which the film presents as a Zionist-funded body set up to undermine Palestinian nationalism.
Khouloud becomes increasingly opposed to her husband’s approach and ultimately embraces the revolt.
The urban-rural divide is prominent in the film; harrowing scenes in which British soldiers torment Palestinian villagers are juxtaposed with scenes of lavish, wine-fuelled parties in Jerusalem in which upper-class Palestinians dance with British officials.
Rural rebels are presented as the driving force behind first the general strike and then the violent rebellion.
‘Their countries don’t want them’
For all its strengths, the film is not without its blind spots. For example, it avoids controversial aspects of history, such as the omission of the crucial role played in the revolt by Izz al-Din al-Qassam, after whom the armed wing of Hamas in Gaza is named.
Qassam gets a single and surprising mention: “As Qassam preached, it is better to die a martyr than to surrender,” an elderly villager declares before soldiers kill him.
Curiously, there are no Jewish characters with speaking roles. The focus is exclusively on Palestinians and a few British officials, and the overarching conflict in the film is between them.
Billy Howle plays Thomas Hopkins, a conscience-stricken official who becomes increasingly outraged by British policy and prone to expletives as the story proceeds.
Robert Aramayo plays Captain Orde Wingate, a fanatical anti-Palestinian racist and Christian Zionist.
There is no sense in the film that the Palestinian characters see Jewish settlers as enemies; the main villains for them are the British.
In one early scene, a Palestinian girl asks her mother why Jewish migrants they see building a settlement have moved to Palestine. “Their countries don’t want them,” her mother replies.
The tone of the conversation is curious, even empathetic. It is worlds away from the mythical narrative common in pro-Israel discourse, which casts Palestinians as fanatical antisemites.
Palestinian grievance, the film shows, was simply that their land and homes were being stolen.
As Yusuf puts it succinctly in one scene: “We are losing land daily, and many farmers have been evicted from their lands.”
‘Palestine was not Balfour’s to give’
The climax of the film sees the unveiling of Britain’s 1937 partition plan to split Palestine into two states, which would have entailed forcible displacement.
It was a precursor to the eventual partition plan, which Palestinians rejected in 1947, setting the stage for war, the creation of Israel and the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of at least 750,000 Palestinians.
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It is often suggested by British commentators that Palestinians were somehow unreasonable to have rejected the partition plan. But the film depicts the British policy as a callous colonial betrayal.
“Is it the right of the English to distribute the land as they like?” A dignified village elder asks an uncomfortable Hopkins in one scene.
Later, protesting women address Lord Arthur Balfour’s famous declaration of 1917, which declared British support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
“Palestine was not Balfour’s to give,” they chant.
The motivation for the revolt is summarised by one rebel leader: “My friends, your country and jobs are being given away.
“Either we stand up for ourselves, or we sit back and watch.”
Palestine 36 is stirring, thought-provoking and devastating. It examines the roots of the bloody conflict still playing out today.
This is a rare film that has been made with profound moral courage. It ought to win an Oscar – several, ideally.
