52 Films by Women Vol 3. 47. WAJIB (Director: Annemarie Jacir)
Some
Palestinian filmmakers accept funding from Israel. Not writer-director Annemarie Jacir. For her it
is a point of principle. A consequence of this is that not many cinemas in the United
Kingdom play her movies, though the word of mouth generated by her 2017 third
feature, Wajib, has led to it getting a wider release. The film’s
country of origin should not be a barrier to the marketplace, so long as its
content is not overtly offensive. There are plenty of movies that do offend and
are welcomed by multiplexes with open screens. We’ll see in the next few months
how many cinemas decide to play Lars Von Trier’s serial killer movie, The
House That Jack Built.
Wajib is at once modest and epic. It
follows the course of one day in which a father and son Abu Shadi and Shadi
(real life father and son Mohammad Bakri and Saleh Bakri) travel around
Nazareth in a metallic blue Volvo licence plate 51.492.80 delivering
invitations for Abu Shadi’s daughter’s wedding. Through the course of the film,
the pair enter many houses, imbibe liquid, eat food, compare Palestinian coffee
to Italian Cappuccino and debate Shadi’s decision to live in Italy with Nada,
the daughter of an exiled PLO leader. Abu Shadi has told friends that Shadi
lives in America; in reality it is his ex-wife who has settled in the States
having re-married, much to teacher Abu Shadi’s deep shame. He has also told
them that Shadi is studying medicine. The young man, wearing a pink paisley
shirt, red trousers with long black hair tied back, works in an architect’s
office but does not practice.
We first see
Abu Shadi sitting in his car listening to announcements on the radio of the
passing of such and such person. Details of the funerals are announced. Abu
Shadi is inhaling from a cigarette. We later learn that he has recently had
heart surgery and is not supposed to smoke. Shadi comes to the car with a box
of invitations. He has to remove Abu Shadi’s fishing tackle from the back seat.
‘Do you still fish?’ he asks, slightly amazed. ‘Put it in the boot,’ Abu Shadi
replies, not answering the question. They visit a series of friends and
relatives, negotiating traffic and unofficial parking restrictions. To secure
one parking spot, Abu Shadi purchases a teddy bear, which he later tries to
give away to a West Bank child selling Christmas stuff in a traffic jam. The
child refuses the gift.
It is
December. There are Christmas lights on a stairway leading to the first house they
stop at. There are Christmas decorations inside the house too. They are
welcomed enthusiastically. At their second stop, they leave an invitation with
a widow (Samia Shanan). Abu Shadi complains about the stairs. He wonders how
the woman they are visiting can live there. ‘I know you cannot attend,’ says
Abu Shadi to the widow, ‘but it is my duty to invite you. This is wajib.’ But
how did her husband die? ‘Heart attack on the stairs,’ she explains.
They drop in on another family, where a mutual acquaintance, Marwan (Falah Zoabi) is also
visiting. Abu Shadi instructs his son to fetch his invitation. Shadi cannot
find it. ‘In your time away, you have forgotten how to read Arabic,’ Abu Shadi
admonishes him, before disappearing to the car to hastily write an invitation.
The illusion that Shadi has studied medicine is maintained throughout the
visit. ‘Why did you say that?’ asks Shadi. ‘I wanted him to feel that you were
inspired by him to follow in his footsteps. It makes him feel good.’ Shadi’s
constant complaint is that he believes that people won’t be offended by the
truth and in many cases don’t care.
In the
course of the day, Shadi will be bitten by a budgerigar, kissed by a lonely
woman, Noura (Rebecca Esmeralda Telhami) whom he hasn’t seen for many years,
have his shirt pocket ripped and face bruised after intervening in a fight
outside a petrol station and be left to walk to the family home by himself,
where, on the way he is offered a drink and some bread. Abu Shadi gets off
lightly; only his tyre is let down after an unfortunate parking infraction.
‘Did you see the bastard who did this?’ he asks a child. The child runs away.
Incidentally,
Wajib
has been given a 15 certificate in the United Kingdom for ‘strong language’,
although there is nothing in it you wouldn’t hear in a ‘12a’ rated film. If you
can’t deny a film an audience though cinema screens, you can have a go by
up-rating it. ‘Goodness, they use fifteen-rated curse words; I’m not going.’
Abu Shadi
would deeply like to see his son remain in Nazareth for Christmas, but Shadi
intends to leave after the wedding. Shadi’s main complaint is that his father
has booked Fawzi Baloot to sing. Abu Shadi plays a CD in the car of Baloot
singing, which offends Shadi’s ears. ‘He has been singing at our family’s
weddings for 40 years,’ Abu Shadi explains. ‘He always sings the same songs.
You’d think he’d sing something different’, Shadi replies. Later that day,
Baloot calls Abu Shadi. ‘He wants a payment up front,’ Abu Shadi explains.
‘Unbelievable!’ responds Shadi.
The real
point of tension is whether the mother of the bride, Um Shadi, will attend. Her
second husband is very ill. ‘I hope he dies,’ curses Abu Shadi, having arranged
a winter wedding for daughter Amal (Maria Zreik) to fit in with her plans.
Death
punctuates the film. At one point, there is a traffic jam. There is a funeral
procession for Jamal Jamil. ‘The electrician,’ asks Abu Shadi. ‘No, that was
Jamal Jamal. Jamal Jamil was unemployed.’ Uncollected rubbish appears
everywhere. One conversation is broken up by a bag of rubbish thrown in a
garden. ‘Hey neighbour,’ the home owner says. The neighbour doesn’t want to
talk about it.
Abu Shadi
facilitates a meeting between Shadi and his cousin Fadya (Rana Alamuddin). Fadya
is a successful lawyer. She lived with a man, they broke up and now she is
unmarried, with no prospects. ‘That is how it is here.’ They talk about Italy,
various landmarks, the Trevi Fountain. There is a spark. However, Shadi is in a
permanent relationship. ‘It is a pity that cousins don’t marry anymore,’ says
Abu Shadi, sadly.
Amal doesn’t
know that her mother might not come. She learns this news at the dress shop.
Amal tries two dresses on, a pink figure-hugging one with pearl-like beads and
a black dress with sparkly bits that makes Amal look like a cocktail waitress.
(OK, I’m not going to be writing for Cosmopolitan any time soon.) When she
hears about her mother, she expresses her disappointment. Abu Shadi intercedes.
He turns her around and has a good look at the black dress. He prefers the pink
one. They hug. Abu Shadi is both father and mother to his two children.
Delivering
an invitation at one address, Shadi encounters Georgette Tamal (Zuhaira
Sabbagh) who knows the family. She invites him in. She knows Abu Shadi also and
brings him a cake. ‘Take the tray,’ she tells him. ‘You can bring it back.’
Both Georgette and Abu Shadi are of a similar age. They have both lost their
partners. Shadi exaggerates his liking for her dish. ‘It’s all right,’ says Abu
Shadi, trying to change the subject.
The biggest
point of tension is Abu Shadi’s decision to invite Ronnie Avi, an Israeli. In
Shadi’s eyes, Ronnie was secret service and responsible for him getting
arrested for his so-called subversive activities, a cinema club. He spied on
Abu Shadi, making sure he didn’t teach anything that would inflame anti-Israeli
feeling. They argue over this twice. In the first instance, Shadi gets out of
the car and Abu Shadi hits a dog by mistake. He is petrified – they are in an
Israeli neighbourhood. ‘You know what happens if you kill a dog, especially an
Israeli one.’ The animal stirs. Abu Shadi drives away quickly. We hear the
owner call to the dog in the background.
The second
time, Shadi gets out of the car again, as does Abu Shadi. They have a
full-blown row. Abu Shadi describes Ronnie Avi as his friend. ‘You know his
language better than anyone, yet they treat you like dirt.’ Abu Shadi is ashamed
that Shadi is living abroad talking about a mythical Palestine. ‘I am living in
it right here.’ Neither family member has the moral high ground. Tensions are
unresolved, but Shadi walks home. Abu Shadi drives in circles.
Although the
film is preoccupied with the state of Palestine, it has plenty of moments of
humour, not least when Shadi speaks to his girlfriend Nada’s father and hands
the phone to Abu Shadi. ‘What do you see?’ the ex-PLO leader asks. ‘Trees and
orange groves and mountains,’ Abu Shadi replies as we see bags of rubbish and
dirty streets. Abu Shadi is true to his character trait of telling people what
they want to hear. He also buys green tarp – one of Shadi’s pet hates – to
cover the view from the apartment roof.
Do they
reconcile? The final scene is beautiful. The sun sets, the men smoke and drink
coffee in synchronicity. Abu Shadi agrees about the tarp. The view is better
without it. ‘But it is what Amal wants.’
Some of the
film’s most telling political points are made in passing. We hear on the radio
how Israelis wish to ban announcements in Arabic on public transport. When
Shadi suggests that Abu Shadi could have said that the young man was training
to be a pilot, rather than a doctor, Abu Shadi reminds him that such training
for Palestinians is not permitted.
Yet the film
is a love letter to the Palestinian people, tetchiness and all, notably in the
scene when Shadi is invited for a drink. The neighbourhood shares what it has.
Jacir’s achievement is in examining a pressure cooker situation in a low-key
way, as a contrast to the high drama of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, which
has a similar ‘life in a day’ structure. The camerawork is mostly static, but
there is one tracking shot that follows Shadi and Abu Shadi from behind and
stops to let a scooter roar past. A frequent complaint about women’s films is
that they are not ‘artistic’, that is to say, lack visual flourishes or moments
that say, ‘look at me, I’m directing’. But there is artistry is all in the
storytelling: simple, direct, involving.
Reviewed at Arthouse Cinema, Crouch
End North London (Screen One), Thursday 4 October 2018, 16:50 screening
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