Origin: Israel | Documentary | Director: Ra´anan Alexandrowicz | 100 minutes

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The Law in these parts

Ra´anan Alexandrowicz 2001 docu 100 min.

Unique and oddly powerful documentary. Essentially a series of talking
heads. interviews with the military judges who presided over the military
courts in the territory Israel annexed during the 6 day war.. Mixed in,
occasionally playing behind these men on a green screen are snippets of
archival footage of the conflicts in the occupied territories.

Hearing this description, one could well assume the film would be dry and
academic, but the ideas beneath what it being quietly discussed are so
powerful and disturbing that the film works as a kind of documentary
theater piece. By focusing on one specific aspect of the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, Israeli filmmaker Alexandrwicz gives a deeper sense
of the legal and moral hypocrisy and inhumanity of Israel's treatment of
the Palestinians than many wider ranging and flashier documentaries.

By simply having these judges try to explain the odd military justice
applied to the native people of the land Israel occupied, and how the
courts kept bending and twisting both words and international law to
justify their actions, (for example, under the Geneva conventions, an
occupying nation is not allowed to move civilians from their country into
the occupied land. So how to make the settlements legal? The Israeli
supreme court simply changed the wording, saying that henceforth the
territories were no longer 'occupied' but 'held'. As if changing the word
could justify the behavior -- even though just about every Judge uses the
term 'occupied territory' in the film.) One is left with a sad and
sickening feeling.

As these judges admit to knowing that an accused had been tortured into
confessions, that not only the accused but even the judges themselves were
often not allowed to know the details of the case and the accusations, that
the judges had to simply take the word of the army prosecutors, since just
about everything was labeled 'classified', it's hard not to see echoes of
the recent legal overreach in America towards accused terrorists.

The personalities of the judges are fascinating as well. Some clearly feel
guilt about their actions, other ambivalence, others are defensive, and yet
others seem to blithely miss just how twisted and sad their self-
justification sounds.

Whatever you feel about the incredibly complex middle east situation, where
there is plenty of guilt on all sides, this film is a powerful indictment
of when the supposed 'rule of law' becomes instead a cudgel to control a
people, and justify questionable policy.

I found the film only grew on a second viewing. Far from feeling repetitive
I was able to follow in even deeper detail, and contemplate in more depth
the complex issues being examined. I found myself more emotionally
effected. I also was able to more fully appreciate just how inventively the
film-makers had incorporated green screen techniques to give an unusual
power to their interviews, and create as documentary that was actually
quite cinematic, in it's unique way.

trailer: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2461116185?playlistId=tt2069916&ref_=tt_ov_vi

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View trailer