Wall by Simone Bitton

WALL (Mur) is a cinematic meditation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which the filmmaker blurs the lines of hatred by asserting her double identity as Jew and Arab. In an original documentary approach, the film follows the separation fence that is destroying one of the most historically significant landscapes in the world, while imprisoning one people and enclosing the other.

On the building site of this mad wall, daily utterances and holy chants, in Hebrew and in Arabic, defy the discourses of war, passing through the deafening noise of bulldozers. MUR offers its spectators a last glimpse of the beauty of this land and the humanity of its inhabitants a moment before they disappear behind the wall.
http://www.wallthemovie.com
http://www.stopthewall.com


I watched this film last night...Actually early this morning, but that is neither here nor there. I couldn't sleep for the pain it evoked in my soul. Here are some of the thoughts I wrote down while I was watching Wall...

~Seperation creates an enemy without a name or face that is only known through society, i.e. family upbringing and social stigma.

~Socially instilled fear and racism/nationalsm. Is nationalism as bad as racism? Both are mere concepts/ideas/intagible thoughts that evolved at the same time in history (1850ish). (ONLY) A century and a half has brought us to this point. Both create boundaries between people - superiority based on ideas that have no real tangible basis.

~Use of the repressed to build their own imprisonment.

~I began by loving all things Jewish. Their religion was like a mystical meoldy to my soul.
The Holocaust seared these people to my being and I felt connected not only through beauty, but the terror of lost lives.
This love affair lasted for many years and sustained me through my worst trials. Things began to slowly change for me. The first intfatada shook me and brought me to tears; the second made me question everything I held dear.
How does the oppressed become the oppressor? How do they forget the lessons in their own history? What world do I live in for this to be reality?
My childish dream to live on a kibbutz and die an old lady wandering the streets of Jerusalem has changed to those of the outraged warrior. I now ask how I can help to bring change when peace is only to be found in the mosques and temples, the hearts of individuals, and the innocence of babes, as it lies no where else in this war torn land.
Neither are the other, they are us. The only thing that seperates us is culture and tradtion and the pride that stops us from seeing the why that lies therein. When we understand these things we see that all along we were killing our OWN brothers and sisters in needless meaningless battle.

~The question is what you see

~A possessive mad love from those who had survived the ghettos of Poland. Like Rachel the Poet;
"I shall lock the doors to my heart
And cast the key into the sea
My heart shall know no more dread
Upon hearing you approach
I have but one consolation;
That I have brought this on myself"
Shuli Dichter, Maanit Kibutz:" So sarcastic. So terrible. So cynical! Its beyond irony. So to console ourselves for killing ourselves we'll write in history books that we brought it on ourselves. That will be our sole consolation.
Silence frightens me most. Desperate people keep silent. I'm not despaied. I'm fighting. "