www.miekebal.org The personal website of Mieke Bal

State of Suspension

2008 | 82mins | Colour
Directed by Mieke Bal & Benny Brunner

Genre: Documentary
Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles

Geographically close, politically distant: Israel-Palestine in nine chapters

State of Suspension is a drama of fragments in nine chapters; an unusual and provocative look at Israel, sixty years after independence.

The film is a composite of satirical performances, music and poetry especially composed for the film, which transform the Israeli national anthem and the Declaration of Independence into inclusive rallying calls. These elements will be interspersed with unique archival material, compelling situations, revealing statements by a variety of people, all related to the ongoing conflict and the occupation.

Posing as “Patriotism Inspectors”, Israeli comedians Yossi and Itamar interrogate passers-by to check if they have served in the army; masquerading as officials shooting a Foreign Ministry video, they ask Jewish and Arab Israelis to apologize for the harming of innocent civilians. The hilarious interaction of these daring comedians with Israeli society, revealing aspects of its deep psyche, forms the film’s backbone, complemented by unique archival material, compelling interviews and dramatic situations.

In-between episodes of these performances we insert short portraits of Israelis – Jews and Arabs – of different ages, cultural and religious backgrounds. They range from holocaust survivors to nakba survivors, from refuseniks to settlers, and from peace workers to refugees. These portraits will be combined with present-day cultural manifestations of the conflict, and political attitudes vis-à-vis the Israeli Palestinians and the occupied Palestinians. One such manifestation is the systematic erasure of the Palestinian history of the country. This is visible in the spraying over Arabic street and place names on road signs. An Arab and an Israeli are searching for the remains of a village they knew was there but cannot locate; no traces remain.

For the political manifestations of the conflict, we have material from the video archive of BTselem, an Israeli Human Rights Organization, and to the Nakba Archive in Beirut. The archival material we selected from BTselem depicts demolitions of Palestinian houses in Jerusalem, army and settlers’ violence against Palestinians, harassment and humiliation of Palestinians at checkpoints. From the Nakba Archive we will select testimonies of first generation Palestinians who were expelled in 1948 from their towns and villages in Galilee.