All That’s Left of You | Dir: Cherien Dabis | ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
This deeply personal and quietly devastating film by writer, director and main actor Cherien Dabis covers 75 years in an epic drama inspired by her family history. “My father is a Palestinian refugee who lived most of his life in exile.”
Hanan (Cherien Dabis) is elderly when she talks to someone the audience can’t see. “I’m here to tell you who my son is,” she says. However, she does not start her story with her son Noor, but his grandfather Sharif (Mohhamad Bakri) who was living in Jaffa in 1948, the year of the Arab-Israeli War.
The historical context is needed to give more understanding to why Noor (Muhammad Abed Elrahman) and his friend joined a mass protest in the West Bank against Israeli tanks and soldiers in 1988. The teenagers threw rocks and the soldiers fired their rifles.
Noor was hugely influenced by his grandfather whose stately home and successful orange grove were taken by the Zionist militia in 1948. Although the family was displaced to a refugee camp, Sharif always believed that he would be able to return to his family’s farm and the young Noor was excited by his stories many years later.
There were no orange trees in their cramped living space patrolled by the Israeli army who conduct brutal security raids, check IDs and impose a curfew. This is where Sharif is living 40 years later with his son Salim (Seleh Bakri – Mohhamad Bakri’s actual son), Hanan who is married to Salim and their three children including Noor.
Although life is fairly bleak, there have been some good times and Dabis uncovers a glimmer of hope amongst the repeated tragedies that strike this family over three generations when the person who Hanan is talking to is revealed.
The opening night of this extraordinary film is on Thursday 9 April at Luna Leederville. There will be Middle-Eastern Palestinian themed treats before the film which starts at 6.30pm.
Lezly Herbert
