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Home / Entertainment

Movie review: Inch'allah

NZ Herald
30 Oct, 2013 04:30 PM3 mins to read

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Inch'allah ambles uneventfully, though questionably, along.

Inch'allah ambles uneventfully, though questionably, along.

The film-makers of Israel and Palestine have been exceptionally productive over the past decade, creating work that acknowledges the intractable difficulty of reconciling enemies in such entrenched positions.

Waltz With Bashir, The Lemon Tree, The Band's Visit, Lebanon, Defamation and more recently, The Policeman, have taken a satisfyingly complex view of a conflict so often drawn in black and white. Meanwhile, substantial and powerful documentaries have cogently pleaded the Palestinian cause.

This technically assured but hopelessly underwritten French-Canadian drama cannot be considered in their company, not least because it is disturbingly easy to read as an endorsement (the title is Arabic for "God willing", after all) of terrorism by suicide bombing.

Such a bombing occurs, heard but unseen, in the opening scene and the film shows what led up to that moment. Quebecois doctor Chloe (Brochu), who works in a clinic in Ramallah hard up against the wall that protects a new settler village, befriends one of her pregnant patients, Rand (Ouazani) and her politicised brother Faysal (Sweid).

In one of the film's many contrivances, this aid-funded volunteer lives on the other side of that wall: the contrast between Israeli and Palestinian life can be repeatedly underlined and Chloe can have scenes with her friend Ava (Levy), an Israeli soldier who hates her work.

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This set-up having been languorously established, the film ambles almost uneventfully along until Rand goes unexpectedly into labour when the border is closed. Director Barbeau-Lavalette does a decent job of dramatising these few minutes and, to her credit, avoids demonising the young, conflicted and frightened soldiers caught in the middle. Unfortunately the film as a whole lacks any such texture.

It is also devoid of any dramatic structure: Brochu, who seems most of the time to be auditioning for the part of a shop mannequin, is quite without affect, so we have no idea why she acts as she does.

Cinematographer Philippe Lavalette, the director's father, creates some visual magic, evoking street life and cramped interiors with equal effectiveness.

He gives a keener sense of life in the camps than any drama I've seen, but it doesn't make up for a film that is, on the whole, dramatically inert and morally questionable.

Stars: 2.5/5
Cast: Evelyne Brochu, Sabrina Ouazani, Sivan Levy, Yousef Sweid, Sivan Levy
Director: Anais Barbeau-Lavalette
Running time: 102 mins
Rating: M (violence, offensive language) In English, French, Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles
Verdict: Politically suspect, dramatically inert

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