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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

Miral

After conquering the art world in the 1980s, then making three critically acclaimed and award-winning films, it seemed like painter/filmmaker Julian Schnabel could do anything. But perhaps Schnabel’s biggest challenge is

his new film Miral, which tells the story of a 16-year-old Palestinian girl named Miral coming of age during the Intifada. As Schnabel, a Jewish American, told me in an interview, it seems like you can make a movie about anybody but Palestinians. And that’s a big reason why he did it.

Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto plays Miral, whose sheltered life within the walls of the Dar Al-Tifel orphanage and school is shattered in 1987 by the intifada. Miral must choose between violent resistance against Israel with her activist boyfriend, played by Omar Hetwally, or the peaceful route of education advocated by the founder of the orphanage, Hind Husseini, played by Hiam Abbass.

The film was shot in Israel and Palestine and is based on the autobiographical book by Rula Jebreal.

A special screening of Miral at the United Nations drew protests from Israel’s UN delegation, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, claiming that the film is anti-Israel for depicting Israeli forces firing on protesters, beating prisoners and destroying homes. They acknowledged that such actions did, of course, occur, but were upset that they were shown without explaining what might have justified them.

This controversy follows a sad yet predictable pattern in the Israel/Palestine debate, where any criticism or even recognition of violence against Palestinian civilians is called anti-Israel and even anti-semitic, while anything that attempts to show the Palestinian perspective is labeled the same or worse.

But as Schnabel told me, Miral is just the story of a Palestinian girl. It’s not a question of pro- or anti-Israel or for or against Palestine, but of what did or didn’t happen in a person’s life. People are free to debate whether an autobiographical work is accurate, but it makes no sense to complain that a person’s life story only provides a single perspective. In addition, the film does not lionize Palestinian fighters, showing violent divisions amongst opposing factions and characters willing to kill Israeli civilians.

In the end, it seems the critics’ main objection is that Miral contains a Palestinian perspective at all. With Israel as America’s closest ally in the Middle East, the largest recipient of US foreign aid, and with Jewish groups forming a powerful lobbying bloc, the Israeli point of view dominates both the political and media discourse, with any criticism of Israel’s actions or policies quickly condemned as being pro-terrorist or proof that you’ve somehow forgotten the Holocaust. The goal, or at least the effect, is to imply that only one point of view is acceptable.

So don’t be scared away by the overheated rhetoric surrounding Miral, which is not a condemnation of Israel, but a story of one girl who, like so many people in difficult circumstances, must choose between violent retaliation and the more difficult path to peace. That’s why a film like Miral is so important, since no dialogue, let alone negotiation or compromise, can exist if only one point of view is heard while the other is reflexively demonized and discounted.

Miral is rated PG-13 and is in select theaters now.