Film

March 23, 2011

‘Miral’ filmmaker Schnabel is feeling the love — and the criticism

By Naomi Pfefferman

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In an early scene in “Miral,” the new film by artist-filmmaker Julian Schnabel opening March 25, a Palestinian activist named Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass) comes across a ragtag group of about 50 children in Jerusalem’s Old City, many of them crying, trembling, dirty, barefoot, their hair matted and faces traumatized. The oldest is a girl of around 12, who explains that, the night before, the children had barely escaped a fiery rampage that destroyed their homes.  They are alone, hungry and terrified.

It’s April 1948, before the establishment of the State of Israel, and the stunned Husseini, an educated woman from a prominent Jerusalem family, soon learns that the children are survivors of an attack on Deir Yassin by Jewish paramilitary groups. Her response is to found a school and orphanage for children displaced by the fighting, a place that, over the course of the film, grows to accommodate thousands of girls.

The movie goes on to tell the story of several generations of Palestinian women, notably Miral (Freida Pinto of “Slumdog Millionaire”), who, in the late 1970s, arrives at the school after her mother, an alcoholic and victim of childhood sexual abuse, commits suicide. A decade later, the teenage Miral becomes radicalized while teaching in a refugee camp during the First Intifada; in one scene, she is arrested in the middle of the night for associating with activists, then brutally beaten while being interrogated in an Israeli prison.

In another sequence, a female terrorist attempts to place a bomb in an Israeli movie theater, while the rape scene from Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” plays on the screen. The sequence serves as a metaphor not only for the rape of Miral’s mother — which propels the woman’s suicide — but also for the protagonist’s perception of the plight of the Palestinian people, Schnabel, the film’s director, said.

“Miral” is essentially an art film based on an autobiographical novel by Schnabel’s girlfriend, the Palestinian-born, Italian TV journalist Rula Jebreal.  Schnabel, 59, is among the most successful painters in the contemporary art world, and the most prominent artist ever to successfully segue into filmmaking. His “Before Night Falls” (2000) earned actor Javier Bardem an Academy Award nomination, while “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (2007), received four Oscar nods, including one for Schnabel in the directing category.

In 2007, Schnabel’s art was celebrated in an exhibition at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. “There were 40 paintings that I actually installed without building temporary walls, so you could just see modern paintings among the frescoes in these giant rooms,” he said.

He met Jebreal at the show’s opening, and initially assumed she was Indian — she in fact bears a striking resemblance to the Indian beauty Freida Pinto, who plays the lead in “Miral” — but was surprised to learn she was, in fact, Palestinian and an Israeli citizen.

Jebreal, in a separate interview, recalled their first encounter: “I don’t know if I would say he had a knee-jerk reaction, but his expression changed from smiling to almost a tension, like he had never seen a Palestinian before,” she said. “So I asked, ‘Are you scared or something?’ And he replied, ‘Should I be scared?’ —  that is how we started talking.”

But the artist and writer clicked; and when she subsequently sent him her novel, “Miral,” he was moved and heartbroken by her story. 

Sometime during the transformation of the memoir into the film, Schnabel left his second wife, the Spanish Basque actress and model Olatz López Garmendia, who appears as a physical therapist in “Diving Bell”; he and Jebreal now live together, and it seems that his passion for his film and its underlying issues is tied, at least in part, into his passion for Jebreal.

It is the star power of the backers of “Miral” that make its release an event worth noting. The other major player behind this historical drama is Harvey Weinstein, the brash chairman of the Weinstein Co., an inventor of modern independent cinema who last month triumphed at the Oscars with “The King’s Speech,” which swept the awards and won for best picture. Weinstein, who, like Schnabel, is Jewish, has acknowledged that “Miral” is “pro-Palestinian,” but has vociferously defended the picture from some prominent Jewish leaders who see it as anti-Israel.

In the weeks leading up to “Miral’s” release, some mainstream Jewish groups, such as the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, condemned the drama as agitprop and, in particular, denounced its U.S. premiere at the United Nations earlier this month. “The film has a clear political message which portrays Israel in a highly negative light,” AJC executive director David Harris wrote in a letter to the U.N. “Permit me to ask why the President of the General Assembly would wish to associate himself … with such a blatantly one-sided event.”

In a telephone interview from New York last week, Schnabel said he understands why some Jews have condemned his movie — some without even having seen the film: “It comes out of fear,” he said. “The fear that the Holocaust occurred, that ‘we have been [decimated], and we don’t want it to happen again’; that ‘these people, the Palestinians, are against us having a State of Israel, and we must fight for that, no matter what happens.’ But I don’t believe that’s true. I believe a Jewish homeland in Israel is superimportant, and a great thing, but we must have empathy; we have to be sensitive. I don’t think it’s a very encouraging way to look at people, as ‘us and them.’ It isn’t us and them. We are all human beings. And what is good for the Palestinians is also good for the Israelis.”

Among complaints leveled against “Miral” is that it presents Israeli soldiers as one-dimensional villains – but Schnabel doesn’t perceive the filmmaker’s job as a political balancing act. “Just as if I were painting a portrait, I’m dealing with what is in the frame that is related to Rula, and to Miral’s point of view,” he said. “It’s not from my omniscient point of view of a 59-year-old Jewish guy who’s got all these different facts where I have to explain who attacked whom in the Six-Day War. It’s Miral’s family history as it was told to her, and as it was lived by her. And that’s the power of the story. I can’t do this inexhaustible summation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are just too many stories.” 

Not all the filmmaker’s critics are Jewish. “Others have attacked me because the film isn’t pro-Palestinian enough,” Schnabel said. “I really can’t believe I’m even talking about this because ‘Miral’ is a movie about a girl and her family,” he added. “If the movie had been set in Afghanistan, we wouldn’t even be on the telephone today.”

Not that Schnabel is without his own opinion. “When I shot the movie and lived and worked in Israel and in Palestine, I was pretty ashamed of certain situations that I witnessed,” he said. “I felt it was like apartheid over there, and that’s very disappointing. There’s democracy for Jewish people in Israel, but I don’t think there’s democracy for Palestinian people. … When I see a kid with peyos and a yarmulke throwing a rock into a Palestinian home and screaming at them, that doesn’t seem to be the Jewish way to me.”

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A version of this article appeared in print.

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Rob Eshman claims “ We are a story driven media group,not ideologically driven”.this story &entire; issue of the JJ seems very agenda driven. With this much play criticism based of the lack of historical accuracy &use; of this film against Israel on the world stage is very appropriate.I hope that the JJ will give adequate coverage to the debunking of the one-sided & distorted presentation rather than justify it on the basis that it is a creative and accurate rendition of this woman’s writings.

Unfortunately, JJ’S out of proportion coverage CARRIES a message. message is very simple Jews are terrorists. Also, literary license is a cover for unchallenged lying.

Comment by HOWARD LAITIN on 3/24/11 at 10:33 pm

Why doesn’t Eshman just rename his rag the Anti-Israel Journal? Is there any anti-Israel viciousness he does not rush to embrace?

Comment by Davidka on 3/25/11 at 2:09 pm

no amount of good acting without G-D, can be called a true act of love.

Comment by jimmie c boswell on 3/25/11 at 3:20 pm

(1 of 2) In association with this story, which Mr. Schnabel nor Mr. Weinstein, have not seemed to at least have researched, from indications in your article, it should be remembered that Deir Yassin was a tactical location, an important link in blockading the Jews in Jerusalem from getting supplies, and where local Arab, as well as Iraqi Troops, were housed (was it against international rules of conflict as it is now to house soldiers in civilian areas?).  Deir Yassin snipers fired from this location on Jerusalem Jews.

Comment by Ben S on 3/25/11 at 5:21 pm

(2 of 3)
Previous to the Jewish advance, an escape corridor was made and more than 200 persons from the village left unharmed.  Subsequent to this, the remaining persons in the village pretended to surrender, then later fired on the Jewish Soldiers.  Contrary to Fateh and Hamas tactics, the Jewish soldiers were not there to kill civilians, but instead some among them either lost composure or did not have time to discern who was civilian and who was a soldier.  It should be significantly noted that independent witnesses told the Guardian, following the battle some of the dead were identified as men dressed as women.

Comment by Ben S on 3/25/11 at 5:24 pm

(3 of 3)
An Arab survivor, Mohammed Sammour (based on his meeting with the heads of the clans of Deir Yassin in 1948), told the Guardian that there were a total of 116 dead.

Comment by Ben S on 3/25/11 at 5:25 pm

This is a very interesting article. I can imagine Daniel Pearl, a kind and sensitive soul, writing this article. The author may be surprised to know that many Jews both from Israel and the United States have been closely involved with Palestinians. Currently, there is extensive cooperation on water, electric power, agriculture, etc. even on security. Thus, the perspective of the author is, unfortunately, limiting her understanding of why so many of us are dismayed at the motion picture and its expected impact on the image of Israelis, especially the IDF.

Comment by HOWARD LAITIN on 3/25/11 at 5:27 pm

when I was a bystander,listening to Julian Schnabel and Rula Jebreal my impression was that he is out of his depth in dealing with politics and she is a strong, determined, and dominant woman. Thus, I believe that she has a definite anti-Israel agenda. This is my subjective judgment having been a standby spectator, not a participant in the discussion.

However, in the Middle East everything is political and has repercussions. Even my support of the PA in educational, public health and economic developments was viewed by certain Palestinians warmly and others with great hostility.

Comment by HOWARD LAITIN on 3/25/11 at 5:32 pm

In 2010,at request of inter res org I estimated 5-20% of Islamic world wants Israel destroyed. 5- 20% of Islamic world would accept state of Israel.  middle 60- 90% would go along with whatever force proved dominant. I was concerned that the extremists would win by killing the moderates& using terror to keep control. Modern Lebanon is case in point. I fear that Egypt may follow this mode.

Everything is connected to everythingIn this life.  This film and its screening at the UN are not occurring in a vacuum. For movie directors or journalists to believe differently means that they are threatening those whose survival is truly threatened: Israel, and her citizens.

Comment by HOWARD LAITIN on 3/25/11 at 5:36 pm

FILM MAKER SCHNABEL ENDS HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE WORDS, “IT DOESN’T SEEM TO BE THE JEWISH WAY” TO ACT. THISREMINDS ME OF A FORMER POPE TELLING GOLDA MEIR THAT JEWS SHOULD BE MORE FORGIVING AND ACT TWICE AS KIND FOR HAVING BEEN TORTURED AND BEATEN DOWN OVER THE MILLENIA.
WE JEWS DON’T NEED TO MAKE A SPEECH AS SHYLOCK DID TO JUSTIFY OUR EXISTENCE.
FROM TIME TO TIME ALL PEOPLE RESORT TO AN OFFENSIVE POSITION RATHER THAN OF ONE OF DEFENCE. IT’S A MATTER OF THE INSTINCT TO SURVIVE AT ALL COSTS.

Comment by JEWISH WAY on 3/25/11 at 6:35 pm

FYI: in today’s news: “Boston Globe: Jewish Journal Story Becomes Center of Miramax ‘Miral’ Ad Campaign”
Rob, you have provided fodder for all who hate Israel. The Jews do not need your ‘tough love’ to push them into suicide with xenophobic Muslims who never resolved their hate campaigns since before their ‘naqba’. 

For aiding and abbeting the avowed enemies of Israel, you have earned a star place in the hall of shame and infamy.  You are an enemy of the Jewish People and you think the opposite. That makes you a dangerous enemy of the Jewish People.

Comment by abbushuki on 3/28/11 at 6:37 pm

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