CLOSE, CLOSED, CLOSURE (Seger)
# stars based on 4 stars: 3 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten First Run/Icarus Films Directed by: Ram Leovi Screened at: Film Forum, NYC, 1/3/03
The territory of Gaza proves that you can't judge quality by numbers. Perhaps the most densely populated area on this planet, Gaza is today the home of a million Arab residents who are guarded over by what they consider an arrogant and illegal Jewish occupation. Ram Loevi's short documentary, which includes all too few historical newsreel clips, gives the audience a good picture of that land, which today encloses a seething Arab population, some of whom consider the fenced-off land to be the world's largest penitentiary.
Though much of Loevi's doc gives the impression that the film, "Seger" with the awkward English title "Close, Closed, Closure" is nonjudgmental, it takes us about thirty seconds to cut through this absurdity. Opening with a shot of a legless boy of about ten years who struggles to put on his artificial limbs and who is handed crutches by a family member, the film soon apprizes us that the lad lost his legs because an Arab hospital in Gaza did not have the equipment to deal with the infected limbs and, subsequently, he and his parents were not permitted to cross into Israel for treatment because his mother was once busted for throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers.
According to the narrator, things were once better. Jews were actually invited to Arab weddings, considered friendly neighbors (and, though the film does not point this out, both Jews and Arabs are Semites and therefore, in effect, cousins). When a peace gambit fails, an intifada results. As Gazan Arabs throw stones and in some cases commit murder against the Israeli soldiers whom they consider an occupation, tensions reache a fever pitch. The struggle between the two sides heats up and cools down, and depending on the current political temper, the gates allowing Gazans to walk into Israel to the jobs they depend on are open or shut.
"Close, Closed, Closure" was filmed by a joint crew of Arabs and Israelis, the latter presumably on the political left which includes Jews who believe, like the current Labour candidate for the office of Prime Minister that Jewish soldiers should be immediately withdrawn from the 288 square kilometer area whether or not violence is continuing.
In a few instances, Loevi's camera hones in Jews hotly debating other Jews, the right-wingers telling the peaceniks that they'll never learn while the left-wingers insist that the right-wingers, well, will never learn.
To ensure the film's humanity, Loevi concentrates on one family, that of the lad who lost his legs, people who feel ambivalent about even allowing any Jewish filmmakers into their home to interview them. Ultimately, Loevi stresses that a Rashoman effect exists: we see, selectively, only what we want to see. Unfortunately we don't get a strong indication of why the Israelis continue to occupy a hellhole like Gaza. Is Israel proper more secure because Gaza is a buffer zone? Is Gaza being occupied to protect Jewish settlements? Is it behind held as a pawn in the off-again, on-again peace negotiations between the Israeli government and Arab officials who demand the total withdrawal of all Jews from all occupied territories? Despite this, no other film in memory brings us in the audience so close-up to seeing this territory, once held by Egypt by occupied by Jews during the Six-Day War, for what it is: a large, overpopulated land of misery that could easily be the tinderbox leading to yet another full-scale mid-East war.
Not Rated. 52 minutes. Copyright 2003 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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