Origin: Israel | USA | Germany | France | Palestine | Fiction | Director: Elia Suleiman | 88 minutes

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Chronicles of a disappearance

Elia Suleiman

Chronicle of a Disappearance (Arabic: Segell Ikhtifa)[1] is a 1996 drama
film by Palestinian director and actor Elia Suleiman. Suleiman stars in the
film along with his family members, his relatives, and other non-actors.[2]
Dhat Productions produced the film.[3] The film features no real storyline
or character arc. Suleiman plays himself returning to Israel and the West
Bank after a long absence which is followed by a series of barely connected
vignettes and sketches, which are intended to convey the feelings of
restlessness and uncertainly from Palestinian statelessness. The film's
tone varies through these scenes such as "Nazareth Personal Diary", which
has a light and domestic tone, and "Jerusalem Political Diary", which has a
more ideological tone.[4]
Chronicle of a Disappearance was Suleiman's first feature film. It has
received international critical acclaim[5] and was shown at the of 1996
Venice Film Festival, where it won the award for Best First Film Prize.[6]

The film is set in the tense period in the Israel-Palestinian peace process
shortly after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the election of
Benjamin Netanyahu, with the strained relations implied but not explicitly
depicted.[7] It is divided into two major sections, all loosely tied
together as the story of Suleiman's return to the West Bank and Israel.[8]
The character of Suleiman in the film is described only as 'E.S.'[9] E.S.
returns from a twelve-year exile in New York City and is now in unfamiliar
territory.[7][8] Within the film, no real plot or character development
emerges. A series of mostly unconnected scenes take place one after the
other in documentary film like fashion. The gradual accumulation of images
and dialogue start without conclusion presenting an unsettling kind of
feeling, which was meant to convey the quality of life led by Palestinians
given their statelessness.[2]
The first, and lightest, section is the "Nazareth Personal Diary",
featuring warm observations of his family and his relatives' lives. Some of
the notable vignettes include the dull yet comedic routines of the
proprietor of a souvenir shop called "the Holyland" in which he fills
bottles of alleged holy water from his own tap and fails to keep a cheap
camel statuette from falling over on his shelves.[3] E.S. and the shop
owner spend time sitting in front of the stop waiting futilely for tourists
to stop by. A boat full of Arab men fish, as one of the men bashes various
Palestinian families that his friend does not belong to while praising the
one that his friend does belong to. Suleiman also interviews a Russian
Orthodox cleric who rails against the tourists polluting the Sea of
Galilee.[8]

A short middle segment shows E.S. getting up to speak at a conference on
Palestinian film making. the microphone immediately begins feeding back and
he leaves the podium. The last section, "Jerusalem Political Diary, has a
quicker narrative pace and a more overtly ideological message.[8] Absurd
humor is evoked alongside feelings of anti-Israeli paranoia in the
characters. for example, what first appears to be a terrorist's hand
grenade held by a Palestinian turns out to be a cigarette lighter.[3]
Suleiman discovers an Israeli policeman's walkie-talkie, and he then meets
up with a single young Arab woman who is engaging in a search for an
apartment that is just as fruitless as the two men's search for
tourists.[3][10] The woman, who speaks fluent Hebrew, is told by Jewish
landlords that they do not rent to Arabs, while an Arab landlord tells her
to live at home in accordance to Islamic tradition. She uses the walkie-
talkie to play various pranks on the Israeli police, at one point singing
an overly malevolent version of Israel's national anthem over the air.[8]
In the last part of the film, the woman stages a piece in which the police
unwittingly participate as a member of a guerrilla theatre group.[10] The
end comes after a long shot of Suliman's parents sleeping, with all the
lights off and Israeli material playing on their television.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicle_of_a_Disappearance

Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-sv8-hxZlY

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View trailer