MIRAL Review; So Contrived, So False, So Cravenly Seeking Out Approval That It Lacks Impact
rating: 1
(Rob's review from Venice re-posted as Miral begins limited U.K. release from today) It is perhaps fitting that, with Babel and Amores Perros writer Guillermo Arriaga on Tarantino's Venice festival jury, there should be some films in competition that show his influence. Famed for his massive, interconnecting stories featuring ensemble casts, Arriaga (who last year directed the mediocre The Burning Plain) would surely see a little of himself reflected back by Julian Schnabel's French/Israeli/Italian co-production, Miral. An English language film produced by the Weinstein Company, presumably as Oscar-bait. Fittingly (considering current news events) the film tells the story of the formation of the state of Israel and the hardship suffered by the dispossessed Palestinians ever since, right up until the first hopes for peace in 1993. It's hard to argue with in terms of politics and sentiment: Israelis and Palestinians should live side-by-side peacefully and atrocities have been committed by both sides (though the film, perhaps reasonably, shows rather more perpetrated by the Israelis). But the thing is, Miral is just so contrived, so false, so cravenly seeking out approval, that it lacks impact and says nothing that isn't either obvious or trite. The fact that the majority of the cast are speaking (at least what sounds like) their second language, only makes things worse. It is a far cry from the Wire-esque likes of Ajami (a film that looks better and better the further away I get from it), with a complete lack of authenticity. The sets look cheap, the make-up used to age actors - as the film spans the decades - is wholly unconvincing and the non-Arabic actors speak with hammy accents, reducing their parts to caricature.
Flashy cameos by the likes of Willem Dafoe and Vanessa Redgrave just add to the feeling that this is a film with two eyes on international distribution and an American audience. It is cynical, heavy handed and manipulative beyond belief. It feels at times like the dramatic sections of a history channel documentary, as characters talk in long, unbroken historical exposition: This is an important day for our country. We have been occupied for many years. Four workers have been run over by a military convoy and we can't take it anymore. This sort of thing is always being directed at characters who should know the information anyway. For example, a man says, to a women who runs an orphanage for Palestinian children: you see, these children are here because they are refugees. Their homes have been destroyed. I think she knows. She brought them here in the first place. When we're not being told (literally told) who the Jews are and why they are here and how long they've been (and probably what they had for breakfast in the Summer of 1957), we are being shown archive news footage (some of which is really quite interesting), further highlighting the educational nature of the film. It is as if it were made for schools. In fact, if it was, it would probably make for a diverting lesson and a chance to put the books away.. It is also very poorly paced and edited together. All actions have a consequence which is usually, hilariously, immediate. For example, a nurse helps a group of soldiers escape a hospital and is remanded whilst they are still in view. Why not stop them leaving? A student worries that they have to marry their cousin. Two seconds later: do you want to marry your cousin? No Ok then. It's a farce. There are many more examples of this. Once the Arriaga-like narrative sees different characters introduced and then disposed of, with little time to care in between, we are then introduced to the titular Miral and see her life from small child to fierce young women. The problem here is that she is crushingly unlikeable, bigoted and selfish. 
When making a film about the Israel/Palestine situation, a high degree of tact and sensitivity is not only necessary and appropriate, but desirable. Here, again, Miral comes up short, with its evil Israeli soldiers, emptying people's bags on the bus like big school bullies. They snarl at crying mothers whilst bulldozzing their houses and pointing automatic weapons at their tiny screaming children. I'm sure things like that happen, but not on such broad and simplistic terms. Films like Lebanon and Waltz With Bashir have demonstrated a great deal of humanism and Israeli introspection that is lacking here. The soldiers there are young people, scared and fighting for their lives after being thrown into the army. Not heartless monsters, but multi-faceted human beings, capable of anger and destruction, but usually through ignorance and fear rather than maleficence. Good films aren't afraid of ambiguity or of complicated ideas. But Miral boils everything down to a propagandist and purely reactionary level, which is easier to sell and requires less understanding. In fact worse than that: it actually breeds less understanding. Miral is released in the U.K. today