Supelice
Dreadfully Boring
Nessieldwi
Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.
Curt
Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.
skinnybert
Hey, I understand; we can't expect someone inside of a conflict to present the whole conflict. And Five Broken Cameras certainly shows us how things look when you're in the midst of it.However, our narrator is not just biased; he is also intentionally less than honest, omitting details that might muddy his narrative of a small peaceful village being put upon by invasive developers. Plenty happens, but rarely in cause-and-effect terms that make clear why. Even one-sided presentations need to make sense.There is a truth here that supersedes what the filmmaker intends. While presented as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is also an urban-rural conflict: the city expands, takes up land; the locals object to incursion into "their" land; the urban police enforce the expansion. This film captures how that is experienced by the rural villagers -- with no understanding of the urban view, or understanding of how to deal with it, except to see it as a violation that requires resistance.Rather besides the filmmaker's story is what it portends for later: he brings his three-year-old to the barrier demonstrations, which we have already seen to become dangerous; he frames perception of the police as life-threatening outsiders; he frames the whole narrative of his sons' lives in terms of what indignities Israel was perpetrating. Finally, he continuously acts to make his own martyrdom as likely as possible. This is textbook "How To Raise Your Son To Be A Terrorist", and we get to see exactly how & why, by people who only want to do their best for their kids.
sweetcakes-818-998621
I watched this documentary and had a total change in my view and support of Israel. To see soldiers shooting peaceful demonstrators (kids were also shot at) and also to see then shoot gas at them was horrible. The soldiers always shot at the unarmed and fenced in peaceful protesters. They killed innocent protesters for no reason. The also burned olive trees that the farmers living there had harvested for hundreds of years. Horrible. I will never support Israel again. They are not nice people and we in the US need to pressure our political legislators to also stop sending our countries needed funds to them so they can continue to kill innocents. If Israel is so smart, let them make money and fund their armies themselves.
Red-125
5 Broken Cameras (2011) is a Palestinian documentary film directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi. The movie is narrated by Emad Burnat, who films life and strife in his village in the occupied West Bank.Living in an occupied territory will always be frustrating and, at times, humiliating. However, the major issue that the film follows is the building of huge Israeli "settlements" in the occupied territory. (The "settlements" look like large, fortress-like, apartment complexes.)Although we have all seen footage of Palestinians throwing rocks, and Israeli soldiers responding with teargas and rubber bullets, Burnat films less dramatic instances of nonviolent resistance by Palestinian villagers. As a participant-observer, Burnat is himself vulnerable. He was seriously injured in one skirmish. The title "Five Broken Cameras" refers to Burnat's own cameras, which were smashed during confrontations with Israeli soldiers. (Some of the cameras were purposely destroyed, while others were hit by rubber bullets.)Whatever your position is about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it's useful to see a film that presents the Palestinian perspective. We saw this movie at Rochester's Little Theatre as part of the excellent Witness Palestine Film Series. It will work better on a large screen, but it's worth seeing on DVD if that's the only option available. Five Broken Cameras was nominated for an Oscar in 2012 as Best Foreign Film.
lolkha
I'm pretty neutral on many political issues and like watching documentaries from different parts of the world. I've started to watch this movie hoping to get some firsthand accounts and get insight into life in Arab village under Israel control.However the longer I've watched the more I couldn't ignore that movie-maker trying to manipulate me and lie by omission.Just as one example – Israel soldiers come and arrest Arab teenage children. I find it hard to believe that those arrests are random. So what did those children do? I'd like to know this. Did they try to kill some Israelis, or commit some other criminal acts? Why you don't talk about this? I can go on and on. But this one example should be already enough.
