The latest in an unending flow of documentaries about the malignant state of affairs between Israel and the Palestinians, “Checkpoint” succeeds unusually and disturbingly well in pushing the viewer into the middle of the action.
A vérité film that records events as they unfold, without narration or commentary, “Checkpoint” visits the sites of the most frequent and freighted interactions between Israelis and Palestinians — roadblocks and crossing points in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Israeli border police, even the most humane, come off as arbitrary, brusque and ill-equipped. Consequently, one gets the gnawing sense as the film unfolds that the primary aim of the checkpoints is not to protect Israel from malevolent infiltrators but to control a population.
“Checkpoint,” which was produced for Israeli television and screens four times, beginning Friday, April 23, during the San Francisco International Film Festival with director Yoav Shamir in person, represents another black mark on Israel’s image in the international community. But the Tel Aviv filmmaker has bigger fish to fry than his country’s PR problems.
His probing camera, in close proximity to the participants (who are always aware of its presence), acts as a kind of a witness to the work of the border police. The unsettling effect is to implicate the viewer in the humiliating acts being recorded.
Consider, for example, the border policeman who confides to Shamir’s camera with conspiratorial candor. Cocky and handsome, he is blissfully unaware of how he comes across. “We handle people who make trouble for the country,” he explains. “Whoever comes close, wants to make trouble, we break them. What do I mean by ‘break them?’ We let them suffer in the sun, in the rain. So they’ll learn not to mess with the border police.”
Later in the film and at a different checkpoint, soldiers indeed leave Palestinians shivering in the winter rain for no reason, rather than letting them return to their homes. It’s a cruel, capricious act.
“Trouble,” of course, is in the eye of the beholder. It’s clear why border policemen yell at a man getting out of a car to pull up his shirt before approaching, to verify that he isn’t wearing an explosives belt
The soldiers who empty and search a school bus and an ambulance are cautious in their duty, but they’re also sensitive to the needs of the people they are stopping. But is it necessary to question a shy 4-year-old in the middle of a dirt road to confirm that he’s really sick, as his parents assert?
Although the Palestinians endure the delays, inconveniences and degradation, “Checkpoint” suggests that the Israelis manning the checkpoints are also victims of the policies of indifferent higher-ups. While some soldiers do their jobs with enthusiasm and without second thoughts — those are the ones who make pronouncements such as “We’re humans, they’re animals” — others are clearly uncomfortable and ambivalent.
The latter response will be shared by many viewers, especially in the Bay Area.
“Checkpoint” screens at 10:30 a.m. Friday, April 23, 5:30 p.m. Sunday, April 25 and 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, April 27 at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres in San Francisco, and 9:15 p.m. Monday, April 26 at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. Tickets: $7.50-$12. Information: (925) 866-9559 or www.sffs.org.
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