Palestine 36 (12A)
Directed by Annemarie Jacir
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

ANNEMARIE JACIR’s passionate and complex film explores a critical period in Palestine’s history. 

It begins, as the title suggests, in 1936: rural farmers are impoverished; land is transferred to Jewish settlers; and the movement to liberate Palestine from British control gains momentum. There are strikes and acts of violent resistance.  

The narrative cuts across class and culture, capturing the perspective of rural peasants, port labourers, the Palestinian middle classes and representatives of the British administration. Jewish settlers appear in several scenes but are not represented in the film’s extensive cast of characters: this enables the film to focus on the cruel and duplicitous behaviour of Palestine’s colonial rulers.

Several characters are radicalised by injustice and violence, including Yusuf, a young man from a peasant family hired as a driver by a middle-class family; Khalid, a dockworker cheated of his pay and beaten for complaining; and Afra, a young girl traumatised by the destruction of her village. 

The representatives of the British ruling clique are deftly depicted. There’s the complacent but ruthless High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope; Thomas, the commissioner’s secretary, whose sympathy for Arab communities proves ineffectual; and the sadistic and unbalanced Captain Orde Wingate, a Christian zionist responsible for a succession of atrocities. Robert Aramayo’s portrayal of Wingate captures his brutality without resorting to stereotyping.  

Loosely intersecting storylines resolve into a coherent portrayal of Palestine at a time of cataclysmic change. Key to this is the portrayal of Amir, an influential newspaper editor, and his wife Khuloud, a political columnist writing under a male pseudonym. 

Amir believes better-off Palestinians will benefit by appeasing zionism, while Khuloud sympathises with the predicament of rural workers. The divisions that threaten the stability of their marriage are a metaphor for the destructive divisions in Palestinian society.

Palestine 36 explains aspects of Palestine history (such as the role of the Peel commission) that will be unknown to much of its audience. As a result, there are moments of palpable didacticism, and the occasional loss of dramatic impetus. This is a minor criticism of a film so ambitious in intent and scope.

Jacir explores the subjugation and exploitation of her people while celebrating their resilience and determination to endure. This timely reminder of a shameful episode in British colonial history has a powerful contemporary resonance: those who ignore the plight of the Palestinian people are the moral and intellectual heirs of Sir Arthur Wauchope.

In cinemas October 31.