Blue-Grotto Review of Bethlehem

Bethlehem (I) (2013)

Trust is both essential and lacking. In Palestine, fault-lines run wide and deep.

[7/10 · 27 July 2014]

In a landscape so fractured as Palestine, fault-lines run wide and deep. Trust is both essential and lacking. This insightful and revealing film explores the ties that alike bring people together and thrust them apart. Bonds and fissures extend into religion, politics, family, history, class, workplace, individual desire and beyond. The film director worked for Israeli army intelligence and wrote the script with a Muslim journalist. Together they infuse the film with realism and awareness. The main characters are an Israeli secret service agent and a young Palestinian informant. The agent seeks to protect his informant even as he manipulates him. Not an easy task in any environment. The actors are a little awkward, but capable and believable. The film is brilliant in that it helped me understand what is beneath all the headlines in the Middle East. Beyond all the facts, names and figures, here are the emotions and influences that cut to the bone. Truth is stranger than fiction.