Jul. 18, 2012 - Issue #874: Musician’s Survival Guide: Songwriters on Songwriting

5 Broken Cameras

Emad Burnat was a Palestinian farmer when, in 2005, he got his first video camera to film his newborn son, Gibreel. By then Burnat's village, Bil'in, and much of its surroundings had become confiscated by the Israeli government, who began constructing a massive security wall there. People from Bil'in, joined by supporters from around the world, began to stage non-violent protests, protests attended by military police who seemed eager to greet the protestors with tear gas and bullets. Burnat started filming these events, as did Israeli activist Guy Davidi. Burnat's camera captured some startling images, and eventually caught a bullet itself. Burnat got himself another camera, filmed some more protests, and that camera too got shot. Burnat got another camera, which also got shot, and later still got another. The farmer and proud father was becoming a filmmaker and political activist. Using only footage gathered by Burnat's camera(s), Burnat and Davidi became creative partners and made 5 Broken Cameras, a monocular perspective on a political movement, a memoir of resistance, and a pretty remarkable work. Metro Cinema is screening it at the Garneau for a full week.

This film probably won't change any firmly set opinions about the Israeli-Palestine conflict, but to be perfectly clear, 5 Broken Cameras is more determinedly personal than partisan. There's no broad view, no attempt at journalistic objectivity, but there's something just as valuable: a portrait of individual lives, of a family and a community, ensnared in a great and long and complicated struggle. There are a lot of scenes of soldiers and officials ordering Burnat to turn off his camera, a lot of scenes of Burnat's wife becoming increasingly distraught by her husband's participation, which eventually finds him getting arrested and being hospitalized, and a lot of scenes of Gibreel trying to make some sense of all that transpires around him. Gradually it becomes clear: we, or most of us, are little different from Gibreel; we're little more equipped to understand the machinations of this conflict. But the difference is that Gibreel is stuck in the middle of it all. At least he knows his father is watching.   

Fri, Jul 20 – Wed, Jul 25
Directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
Metro Cinema at the Garneau vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus