Mainstream/Crossover Film/Video - Movie Review Example

The movie is basically about terrorists who choose to blow themselves up for a cause or in other words who execute the suicide bombings. The director has tried his level best to explain situations which turn people into terrorists, when a person has no other option but to give up his life to prove a point such a situation is the most desperate one and only in such a situation a person becomes a terrorist. It would be very unfair to say that the director is sympathetic to murderers and is approving suicide missions through this movie, he has tried his best to bring out the root cause of why people turn to terrorism, and if we are to stop terrorism we have to understand it's root cause and we have to understand the feelings of the people who have no other option but to blow themselves up to send a message to people who do a lot of injustice to them.

The movie has very interesting characters, like Khaled, Said, Suha and Jamal. Khaled and Jamal are childhood friends and share a good chemistry. They live in a town called Nablus. The most interesting character of the movie is without a doubt Said; he remains very serious and focused in the whole movie. Both Said and Khaled had no concrete work to do, so they engaged themselves in a garage and took care of the cars. This film turned many a head by being the first Palestinian film to be nominated for the Academy award in the category of the best foreign film.

The film shows why people turn to terrorism, what are the various factors involved in transforming the people and making them do the unimaginable. Jamal meets Said to prepare him and his childhood friend Khaled to carry out suicide attacks in Tel Aviv, Israel. He said "We decided to answer the assassination of Abu Hazem and Um Jaber's son who died in the bombings." (Paradise now 2005). He motivates Said by saying "If you fear death, you are already dead." (Paradise now 2005). Said had a good enough motive to carry out the suicide attacks, his father was a collaborator and worked for the Israelis, he was executed by them.

He quotes "I was born in a refugee camp, life here is like imprisonment. The crimes of the occupation are countless; the worst crime of all is to exploit people's weaknesses and to turn them into collaborators" (Paradise now 2005). He firmly believed that his father was a very good man but he was made weak by being a collaborator by the Israelis. He wanted to send a loud and a clear message to the Israelis by giving up his life. Both he and Khaled prepared themselves for executing the task. Suha another important character in the movie gets to know about all this, she convinces Khaled to back out of this mission and he convinces his friend Said to do the same.

Said plays a trick on Khaled, khaled returns to his handlers but Said goes on with the plan. With an explosive belt hanging on his body, he decides to get into a bus and blow the whole bus up but he restricts himself on seeing a kid in the bus. "If there is no security for us, there will be none for them either. There power does not help them" (Paradise now 2005). Said said these lines and these lines are a good enough indication of what exactly was going on in his mind. He had a motive of revenge, which is very dangerous and a very powerful one.

The lesson to be learnt here is what turns these people to give up their lives; they love their life as much as