The Time That Remains

Elia Suleiman's latest excursion into the tragicomic life of Palestinians in Israel centres on his own family history. Jumping from 1948 through the 1970s and up to the present, it makes amusing and insightful use of repetition and variation: during each stage we see a group of men sitting outside a cafe (a group of Arab fighters, a trio of young friends and then those friends when they are middle aged); Fuad and his friend's nightly fishing trip forever interupted by an Israeli patrol (the encounters move towards bonhomie before finally taking a suitably paranoid turn in the 1970s); Fuad's neighbour repeatedly trying to set himself alight in his despair (being foiled each time by the honed response of the neighbours). Frames within frames suggest an inherent lack of freedom, ultimately represented by the wall that divides Paestinians from Israelis. The basic absurdities of day to day life under occupation, meanwhile, are hilariously encapsulated by the sequence of a tank's gun methodically tracking every movement of a young man taking out rubbish and then making a phone call (seemingly oblivious), or the patrol ineffectively proclaiming a curfew in Ramallah outside a club where everyone is dancing to loud music. Yet there's also an aching sadness at lives unfulfilled and families torn apart, much of which comes across through the silence between characters, as if the ability to speak has also been oppressed.