Film

DRAMA COMED r PARADISE NOW (15) 90min 0000.

It's easy to forget that Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) are Palestinian car mechanics about to venture to Israel on a suicide-bombing mission in l-lany Abu-Assad’s absorbing tale. That's because first and foremost Paradise Now is a buddy-buddy movie which deserves to be ranked alongside Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Said is the wistful, romantic type. He has the looks and the brain. His tall gruff pal Khaled is the brawn, our Robert Redford if you will. In the opening scene Khaled smashes the car of a complaining client while Said tries the art of persuasion. Played for laughs, the tone is set for a chronicle of friendship between likeable lads defined by violence.

With the principal characters succinctly established the story jumps to the rub. Jamal (Amer Hlehel), who looks like he'd never pass airport security unchallenged, sets in motion the first suicide mission for two years. Before embarking on the mission, the ever-thoughtful Said returns car keys to a beautiful

SEX FARCE

COCKLES AND MUSCLES

CRUSTACES ET OQUILLAGES)

(15) 93min .0.

Take one Rohmer-esque family-at-the- seaside scenario. add two progressive progenitors of new French Queer cinema (writer/directors Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau) add a script that could have been written by Marcello Danon and Edouard Molinaro (La Cage aux Fo/les). To finish add some camp musical interludes. an illLiSiOh to Truffaut's film within a film

one mildly dysfunctional family through a summer break. we follow half

client Suha (Lubna Azabal). The exchange is filled with so much sexual tension it‘s a small wonder that the screen doesn‘t fray. But Suha's not just eye candy or a romantic interlude, her probing leads to an engrossing and even-handed discussion on violence as a political tool. From this moment on Said‘s emotional journey becomes more important than his external characters. and his frailty makes him affable. It's a storytelling style similar to Abbas Kiarostami, especially his suicide drama A Taste of Cherry.

Lof‘ty praise continues since Paradise Now's most obvious peer amongst ‘terrorist' movies is The Battle of Algiers. When the partners-in-crime embark on the assignment, writer/director Assad ups the tempo by delivering a chase thriller. The amoral protagonists and heart pumping action are reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway. Post 7/7 the UK release date was postponed and in between times it's become the first Palestinian film to win a Golden Globe award and receive an Oscar nomination. Further proof that it's only preconceptions that explode in this instant classic. (Kaleem Aftab)

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Performing what amounts to a huge volte face. Ducastel and Martineau move away from the intimate. OCC8$IOnaIIy visceral naturalism of their previous films (Ma Vie. Dro/e de Fe/i’x) into something much more bawdy. freewheeling' and joyous.

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44 THE LIST 13—27 Apr 2006

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