The Eastern Front

If Elia Suleiman's face were a cartoon, then the single short, white brush stroke dabbed into his black hair would perhaps be the beginning of a thought balloon, perpetually forming above the left eyebrow. One after another, ideas pop loose from that creased forehead and float through his new movie, Divine Intervention.

His image of his hometown, Nazareth: the place where Santa Claus got chased down and killed. His picture of his father, late in life: a man who sits at the kitchen table, endlessly sorting a pile of mail. His notion of Palestinian romance under Israeli rule: a rendezvous at a highway checkpoint, where lovers separated by the Green Line meet in a car for an orgy of handholding. His metaphor for freedom: a balloon decorated with a life-size drawing of Yasir Arafat's head, released from the West Bank to drift over Jerusalem.

Like a silent comedy--like Suleiman's 1996 debut feature, Chronicle of a Disappearance--Divine Intervention is made up of an expertly timed series of such wordless, deadpan scenes. They make you recall that a gag is something that either incites laughter or else stifles speech. Not that the characters in Divine Intervention are entirely mute. The father (Nayef Fahoum Daher) can let loose an obscene, ear-scorching tirade against his neighbors in Nazareth, all the while waving a friendly good morning to each; an Israeli soldier at the checkpoint can decide to act like the emcee of an insane game show, in which Palestinian contestants must follow whatever instructions he shouts through a bullhorn. Language usually hurts in Divine Intervention. For laughter, and imagination, and maybe even hope, Suleiman needs to keep quiet, even though his silence is heavy with longing.

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