It is impossible to watch — let alone review — the social-justice documentary “Budrus” without the thick filter of one’s politics, sympathies and biases.
So the salient question is whether this semi-verité record of a Palestinian village’s opposition to the route of Israel’s security barrier can affect or alter the entrenched perceptions of viewers on both sides.
The answer is yes, up to a point, with some caveats for those with a deeper grasp of the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
“Budrus,” which screened last year in the San Francisco International and S.F. Jewish film festivals, opens Jan. 14 for scheduled one-week runs in San Francisco and Berkeley.
In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles, “Budrus” is a social-issue film that puts its agenda up front, setting out the stakes and strategies for calculated effect.
As army and private contractors descend on the outskirts of Budrus, it turns out that the path of the security barrier will not follow the Green Line, but instead will cut through part of a West Bank village — displacing 3,000 olive trees owned by Palestinian families.
The pain and defiance of the villagers are palpable and genuine, and not staged for the cameras. As a result, we don’t see the trees as symbols, but as real and essential elements of daily life and livelihood.
An avowedly nonviolent resistance movement springs up, led by Ayed Morrar, a soft-spoken, likable family man, Fatah member and oft-imprisoned veteran of the Palestinians’ struggle for statehood. His teenage daughter plays a secondary but strategic (from the point of view of filmmakers Julia Bacha and Ronit Avni) role by representing the women’s front-line contribution.
Conversely and not coincidentally, our first view of Israelis is through an army jeep and earth-moving equipment. The faceless, unfeeling manifestation of power, in other words.
We do see Israeli faces, notably an Israel Defense Forces spokesman offering an American-accented, English-language PR spin. However, Capt. Doron Spielman’s presence — and images of young, easily spooked IDF soldiers beating women and men alike — is overshadowed by another story line: the many Israeli activists who join the Budrus residents in demonstrating against the construction and blocking the bulldozers.
Cinematically, if not in reality, the effect is to reframe this particular conflict from one between Israelis and Palestinians to one between might and right. And what moviegoer doesn’t want to be on the side of right?
“Budrus” is constructed from footage shot by various professionals and amateurs during the 10-month span of protests, and it is augmented by the filmmakers’ after-the-fact interviews with key participants.
Only viewers who pay close attention will pick up on the filmmaking sleight of hand intended to create the illusion that we are in the midst of unfolding events.
The goal of this strategy, which necessitates omitting any identifying dates, is to convey the impression that what we’re seeing is still going on — in other villages, if not Budrus. You can’t blame the filmmakers for finessing the time frame to extend the doc’s shelf life as much as possible.
Avni (the producer) and Bacha (the director) also teamed up on the successful “Encounter Point,” which looked at several families affected by Israeli-Palestinian violence and won the audience award for best documentary in the 2006 S.F. International Film Festival.
Like that film, “Budrus” was produced in the United States; Avni was born in Canada and also holds Israeli and U.S. citizenship, and Bacha, who is not Jewish, was born in Brazil.
The filmmakers do miss on conveying a larger context when it comes to Ahmed Awwad, a Hamas member who joins the nonviolent path. Scenes between Awwad and Morrar, of Fatah, are warm and encouraging, but there’s no mention of Hamas’ stated goal of destroying the state of Israel, or what Hamas higher-ups might have had to say to Awwad at some later date.
However, “Budrus” is not all Palestinian sweetness and light. Bacha and Avni include a scene of Palestinian youths angrily ignoring the principles of nonviolence that their elders espouse and practice, and hurling stones at soldiers.
Violence is the default position of both Palestinians and Israelis, we see. “Budrus” depicts another possibility, and it’s awfully tempting — if you’re a glass-half-full type — to embrace it as a feel-good film.
Hope, after all, transcends politics, sympathies and biases.
“Budrus” opens Friday, Jan. 14 at a Landmark theater in San Francisco and the Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley.