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FILM REVIEWS œ 163 Paradise Lost (Ebtisam Mara'ana) 2003, 56 minutes Reviewed by Rhoda Kanaaneh, Department ofAnthropology, American University Ebtisam Maar'ana's first feature film is a meditation on political and sexual silencing and a powerful statement of her refusal to be silenced. Mara'ana's questions to the people in her village of Fureidis meet with denials, refusals, and outright rebukes: "Beware," "Leave me be," "This is the topic of your [film]?" "It's none of our business," "I don't know anything." Her camera is met with raised eyebrows, the shutters of a window are quickly shut, a woman moves behind a wall and out of the camera's sight, and her mother scolds "Stop it. Why do you have to film so much?.. Go clean up, go peel potatoes." The fear that shrouds this Palestinian village inside Israel is articulated in the film around the history of Suaad Genem, a local former PLO activist and political prisoner now living in England. "Do you know Suaad?" Mara'ana asks over and over again. But rather than detail Suaad's history, the filmmaker's interviews, or attempted interviews, with people in the village end up revealing a history of repression as villagers encircle Suaad and her story with silence. Mara'ana's father tells her, "The people here don't like baëayot [trouble]. . . [Don't] get involved in politics." In documenting this widespread sense of dread of anything "political," Paradise Lost effectively points to the ever-present threat the state poses to its Arab citizens and the terror it implants. The shadow of the Israeli-Jewish state, especially the General Security Services (GSS), looms over the Fureidisis in the film, muting and contorting their public discourse on history and identity. Suaad believes the authorities made an example ofher because "they wanted to scare [the village]." But what compounds this fear is that the filmmaker and the former political prisoner are not only both Palestinians in Israel but are also both women. "As if the Israeli establishment wasn't enough. . .," says Suaad. When the filmmaker visits Suaad in her home in England, she is finally able to ask, "Suaad, I looked for you in Fureidis, and every time I asked, they'd say, 'Quiet. Do you want to be like Suaad?' What did Suaad do?" Suaad responds, "It's because I'm free. Free. That's what I did." If Suaad is guilty in the eyes of the state "just by thinking and saying the word 'liberation,'" she is also guilty in the eyes of her community for "thinking liberation" from her assigned gender role through her political activism, her travel abroad to study, her 164 es JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EAST WOMEN'S STUDIES outspoken "hard" qualities, etc. Lingering admiringly over photos of Suaad in her younger days, who poses with a defiant smile on her face and a kaffyeh around her neck, the film highlights both Suaad and the filmmakers' refusal to be politically and socially intimidated. This emphasis on resilience makes the film relevant to multiple audiences interested in gender or Palestinian studies, and would make a good pairing with Sayyed Qashua's novel DancingArabs. Growing up, the filmmaker heard rumors that Suaad's ex-fiancé was a collaborator who helped send her to prison. A sensational Hebrew newspaper headline from that period claims a "conspiracy of a jealous lover." Suaad rejects these claims, seeing them as the way "Israeli authorities work, to try to empty us of national content." Unfortunately, this "emptying" of politics by superimposing a sensational gender narrative is precisely what many Fureidisis replicate by speaking ofSuaad only in whisper and innuendo. The dual senses ofso-called shame, political and sexual, become further entangled in Suaad's rape and torture in prison—something that the film implies but ultimately remains silent on. Although the film's press kit mentions it, on screen Paradise Lost misses the opportunity to speak directly to a growing audible discussion on women political prisoners and the political uses of sexual violence. The film correctly frames the ubiquity of fear in Fureidis as somewhat exceptional among Palestinian villages in Israel. Mara'ana points out that as one of the...

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