A revealing new season of films at the Ica looks at the links between religion and revolt
Do the roots of the Arab spring lie in cinema? The question seems absurd: surely kleptocratic dictatorship, youth unemployment and grain prices all played a more important part. Iranian film scholar Hamid Dabashi disagrees: "If you want to understand the emotive universe from which the Arab spring arose, cinema is a good place to start. Look at a film like Elia Suleiman's Divine Intervention: there the director spits out an apricot pit at an Israeli tank and blows it up. The scene is both fantasy and prophecy."
Dabashi will be speaking this month at Winds of Change, a series of talks and screenings at the Ica in London showcasing films from across the Muslim world; it hopes to explore the rich, sometimes fraught relationship between religion and civic society. Özer Kiziltan's...
Do the roots of the Arab spring lie in cinema? The question seems absurd: surely kleptocratic dictatorship, youth unemployment and grain prices all played a more important part. Iranian film scholar Hamid Dabashi disagrees: "If you want to understand the emotive universe from which the Arab spring arose, cinema is a good place to start. Look at a film like Elia Suleiman's Divine Intervention: there the director spits out an apricot pit at an Israeli tank and blows it up. The scene is both fantasy and prophecy."
Dabashi will be speaking this month at Winds of Change, a series of talks and screenings at the Ica in London showcasing films from across the Muslim world; it hopes to explore the rich, sometimes fraught relationship between religion and civic society. Özer Kiziltan's...
- 9/20/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
By Michael Atkinson
Just in time for the holidays, particularly Chanukah and Eid al-Adha (okay, that was a few weeks ago), here come two new Mideast films that quietly tear into the bilious, ruinous hypocrisies of fundamentalist religion. It's an ironic conflict from where we stand: nothing is as ripe and ready for the firing squad as reactionary religious discipline, and yet few social codes are as ubiquitous. What's more, they all somehow demand "respect." Outside of most neighborhoods in most American and European metropoli, you can hardly throw an Orwell paperback without hitting and infuriating a narrow-minded fundamentalist, and I suppose how you measure the attack-mode nuts of David Volach's "My Father My Lord" (2007) and Özer Kiziltan's "Takva: A Man's Fear of God" (2006) depends on how strenuously you feel the press of "extreme tradition" (my phrase!) in your own life. The movies seem from a New Yorker's perspective to go gently,...
Just in time for the holidays, particularly Chanukah and Eid al-Adha (okay, that was a few weeks ago), here come two new Mideast films that quietly tear into the bilious, ruinous hypocrisies of fundamentalist religion. It's an ironic conflict from where we stand: nothing is as ripe and ready for the firing squad as reactionary religious discipline, and yet few social codes are as ubiquitous. What's more, they all somehow demand "respect." Outside of most neighborhoods in most American and European metropoli, you can hardly throw an Orwell paperback without hitting and infuriating a narrow-minded fundamentalist, and I suppose how you measure the attack-mode nuts of David Volach's "My Father My Lord" (2007) and Özer Kiziltan's "Takva: A Man's Fear of God" (2006) depends on how strenuously you feel the press of "extreme tradition" (my phrase!) in your own life. The movies seem from a New Yorker's perspective to go gently,...
- 12/23/2008
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.