Prose
Checkpoint An interview with Yoav Shamir As concepts go, Checkpoint’s is beautifully simple: film what happens at the border posts and crossings between Israel and ‘Palestine’, do not interfere and do not comment on what you see – just show. Like the courtroom or the clinic, the checkpoints between Israel and Palestine are an amplifier of social undercurrents, resentments, jealousies and fears between and within two antagonistic communities. As with the numerous ‘Ks’ of Kafka’s novels, the Palestinians are the accused for numerous, nameless crimes, the Israelis are the doormen by the Door that leads to ‘the Law’. An amplifier also serves to simplify and render; the most telling quote to lift from this film is one word, repeated by an Israeli to a Palestinian crowd – ‘Back, back, back…’ It is an imperative, not a question. Or do we see instead the absurdism of Beckett (‘Beckett with big guns’ as one reviewer put it)? In one rain-drenched scene the difficulty faced by a man and a young boy when only one can proceed, and there is a single umbrella to share, is a minor, yet profound existential dilemma. Shamir presents his footage tonally rather than chronologically, shifting in time and season, from blazing sun to freezing rain so that this is less reportage than deep existential tragedy; a series of parables about the struggle to retain humanity, civility and decency in a state of permanent siege. Failure on all three counts is understated but frequent; The Border Police, mostly Arab Druze, do not seem to care that Shamir is watching them as they sexually harass female Palestinian students and routinely humiliate men at the Bethlehem crossing. Where not downright unpleasant, the situation lapses into the absurd. When a large group of Palestinians decide to simply ignore the soldiers who are detaining them en masse, and walk, the shots fired into the air are a resigned, pathetic gesture. In contrast, a winter scene sees Palestinians playfully broadside soldiers with snowballs, in their excitement letting slip war-cries of the Intifada. Yet there should be no mistake as to who drives the tanks or whose fingers are on the safety-catch. It is always the Palestinians who must submit, and as one of them astutely remarks, terrorists would hardly be obliging enough to present themselves at a checkpoint. Thus, it is only one armed camp that we see here.
And this, one could argue, slightly unbalances the film – all of the Palestinians are civilians and all the Israelis are in uniform. As Shamir explains, settlers were almost always waved on. The soldiers themselves are no more than boys, way out of their depth, yet hardening every day that they patrol. Shamir records attitudes ranging from the embittered and openly racist (one soldier refers to the people of Ramallah as ‘animals’), to the perennially bored, to the homesick. They hold in common a cynicism that sustains them more than any sense of duty or patriotic fervour … ’When the Palestinians come,’ says one soldier reclining by a puddle, ‘we put on our show.’ The Palestinians are equally theatrical – one old man, fuming as he waits to pass, mutters to the camera ‘… film this, let THEM see’. There is a contest under way here, over that most cherished territorial gain – the truth. As Shamir relates below, both sides were greedy for the lens. And few are as content to simply let the situation speak for itself as Shamir. This minimalist piece is reassuringly free of the distortions of either left or right. If Michael Moore can depict pre-war Iraq as toy-town or Ken Livingstone can fraternise with Yusef-alQarawadi, then rational perspective on the Middle East is a long way off. Shamir is himself keen to confront the internal contradictions amongst the global left, particularly the courting by some of its members of anti-Semite reactionaries like Quarawadi. ‘I am making a film about the connection between anti-Israel and antiSemitism. It is going to be around the world … Israel, France, America, somewhere in East Europe, the UK probably, Germany … all over the place.’ A broad topic, indeed. MM Were there any logistical difficulties in making the film? Was permission a problem? Not really because it is in public grounds, so basically anyone can shoot there. The more difficult thing was, you know to make your way when you are there. I wanted to bring up a subject that is away, is hidden – people know there are checkpoints, but they don’t know the ‘why’ of these wars, what they look like, what does this really mean on a daily basis … I wanted to bring it out and raise awareness.
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How long did you actually spend at each checkpoint? A lot, you know, so checks I would go, you know, like 1-2-2. All the checkpoints I have been to more than once. But some of them were four or five days in a row, and some were just maybe like different between days and weeks and months. We spent many hours at each checkpoint – going early in the morning and staying until, I don’t know, late afternoon or sometimes late night depending on the situation. After a while, and I was working on my own so I didn’t have … I was shooting it myself and there was no sound men basically, so it was kind of like a one man thing, you know. Did any of the soldiers have a problem with you being there? Sure – but there is nothing they can do about it. How did the Palestinians react to you being there? Some of them disliked it, but I think most of them are aware of the power of media, and for them it was like they would be getting their say and people would see what was happening with them. They only interfered a couple of times, people have [… inaudible] about that.
soldiers to see from the outside before they are like completely sucked into the situation. So it is a good thing, I think. You attempt a balanced viewpoint throughout this film, but you do seem to invite us to make a distinction between the Border Police – lewd, unpleasant and aggressive, and the Army who are that bit more ambivalent and, of course, much younger. Just a spot of reality, you know – the Border Police are notoriously hard – and the fact is that most of them are Druze and Russian immigrants. You know what a ‘Druze’ is? Are those Christian Arabs? Not Christian, but like kind of it is Muslim Arab, but with a kind of mystical theology unique to them. There is a long-term hatred between them and the Palestinians. So it has been like the worst nightmare, these guys and the Russian immigrants who came to Israel tend to be very resentful themselves – it is not a good combination. You chose a very interesting structure in editing the film, non-chronological, almost tonal – what was your reason for choosing to do it that way?
There aren’t any settlers in the film … Normally, they just wave them through … All of the checkpoints in the film are not checkpoints that settlers pass through. They are even deeper inside Palestinian territories. They have no reason to pass through the ones we see. They might pass next to them in the road that leads somewhere else. It was quite interesting how everyone in that film saw you as someone who could help them or be of use to them in putting their point of view across. The soldiers were obviously very aware of what role you could play in putting forward their point of view as well. Yes, but sometimes they just like the company, because it is so boring over there. Did any of the military top brass contact you, or comment on the film? The Army is using the film now for instructional purposes. So I the procedures the soldiers use when stopping the Palestinians, is that the ‘text book’ method? No, definitely not … But I think now there is like more awareness of the problem and they realise things are not going the way they should be, so hopefully they will do something about it. My political point of view is quite clear from the film, so in a way I am not happy about the Army using the film to build a better checkpoint – I would like to see the checkpoints disappear and I would like to see us withdrawing from there. But I think on a pragmatic level, meanwhile while they are still there, especially the younger
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It is very hard to build a structure for a film like that, you know, which has no ostensible narratives. So we went with the seasons. And because we veered from the personal, to the black humour, to the much darker moments … So the point behind the editing was to basically try to lead the audience between these very different scenes … Sometimes its very absurd and black humour, like the scenes at the beginning – and all of a sudden, I try to strike them a little bit, shake them, you know. Has the film been on general release in Israeli? Yes, it has been shown on a few channels … First of all the film was funded by an Israeli public television broadcaster, and they have broadcast it already, like many times. And in September 2004 it is going to be on Channel 2, which is the biggest commercial channel, which means a very big audience and I am really looking forward to the responses. What has the general response been so far? Press-wise they have been great, because … I don’t know … people like the film. So far they have been really good – even right-wing politicians who have seen the film. I think everybody agreed that it shows a very hard picture, but like in a fair way, nonmanipulative way. So it is hard for them, but they have to accept it, you know. What has been the response of the Israel left? A lot of them took it well. Some of the extreme left, you know, said that it is not reflecting what is really going on, that things in reality are harder. But since I showed the film in, like, Ramallah, many Palestinians disagreed … So they were happy with it – they are
feeling it is a very honest picture. So for some reason the radical left in Israel had more trouble receiving the film than the Palestinians. For me, the views and perceptions of Palestinians are more important. Have you been back to the checkpoints since? I have been once, and when I travel, I occasionally have to go through them, you know. But some of them – most of the checkpoint people were very deep inside the territories, so unless you were settlers there was no really reason to go there. But it is like dangerous, even going in with your car … I suppose everyone asks you this question, but … in your view, what is the solution to the situation in the West Bank? I think the solution is very easy: Israel is going to have to go back to its ‘67 lines and everyone knows it is going to happen – in two years, in five years, in 10 years – I don’t know. But for sure, I don’t see any other way. Do you think there needs to be two separate States? Personally, I would love to see a single state for the two people, but I don’t think it is realistic. I don’t think they want it either, though. So at least for a while it should be probably two States and then later on, who knows? But their economy is so attached to ours … unless they are going to have an independent economy, completely detached from Israel, I don’t know – I don’t know how it would work for them. Checkpoint/Dir. Yoav Shamir/Israel/2003/78 min.
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