Elia Suleiman is undoubtedly the first name that comes to mind when talking about cinema in Palestine, which is experiencing one of the longest occupations in the history of the wide geography we are in. The Palestinian director, who has been interpreting the ugly war in his homeland with his own style since his first feature film, Chronicle of a Disappearance, focuses on the same place and this time as in Yadon İlahheyya (Holy Resistance / 2002). comes up with the allegorical narration he embellishes with comedy elements.
In the leading role, the movie, in which Elia Suleiman has an ES character; In his journey to show the text he wrote to international producers, he tells the story of a filmmaker whose path stretches from Nazareth, his hometown in Palestine, to France, and then to the American continent. In this process, all of what we have seen depicts a tragicomic partnership of İbn-i Haldun’s interpretation of “Geography is destiny” in the grave book of Neil Gaiman.
The strange series of situations that started in his house in Palestine, in his relations with his neighbors, left his place to larger “abnormalities” when he went to his next stop, France, and it continues in the same way in America. In paradoxical scenes reminiscent of Joan Cornella cartoons, we watch ES as a silent and unresponsive observer in the face of their experiences. The functions of the actors other than Suleiman are not continuous, and Gael Garcia Bernal also appeared in the film as a short-term guest actor.
Despite the intense metaphors it contains, I think that every audience who follows what is going on in the world to a certain extent can be the guest’s mind. Suleiman; The fact that the situations such as domination, restriction, and constant control throughout the film did not only occur in a region that was ignored for a small area, which has been ignored for years, and that it has materialized in different scales, even in the “American dream”, and how a global Palestine emerged, He wanted to emphasize using repetitions.
The dynamic choices of the Tunisian cinematographer Sofian El Fani made the narrative, which is almost non-monologue or dialogue, seen exactly as it was seen by Suleiman. While some soft sequences contain the Wes Anderson symmetry, in others, with the picture captured at the moment, we are jumping into the surrealism of Jodorowsky cinema at once!
With its well-chosen music, the film plays separate emotions with many frames; it reminds us that the naked truth is at the bottom of our nose, and forces it to more… In the last part, the camera shuts down in a bar in Nazareth while ES is still following the young people having fun with its calmness and we think about our own observations with a moving song. I would like to conclude the article with Suleiman’s words about the movie: “If Palestine is seen as a microcosm of the world in my previous movie, I can say that my new movie is trying to represent the world as a microcosm of Palestine.”
It Must Be Heaven (2019)
Directed by: Elia Suleiman
Starring: Elia Suleiman, Tarik Kopty, Kareem Ghneim, George Khleifi, Ali Suliman, Faris Muqabaa, Yasmine Haj, Asmaa Azaizeh, Claire Dumas, Vincent Maraval, Gael García Bernal
Screenplay by: Elia Suleiman
Cinematography by: Sofian El Fani
Film Editing by: Véronique Lange
Costume Design by: Alexia Crisp-Jones
Set Decoration by: Elise de Blois, Mary Lynn Deachman, Maha Haj, Rabia Salifiti
Art Direction by: Caroline Alder, Juna Suleiman
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Le Pacte
Release Date: October 19, 2019 (Chicago International Film Festival)
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