by Lau Lu-Zheng
With the current day’s plethora of anger and malice-fueled news, Darrin J Sallam’s Farha (2022) is a great antidote against the current worldwide bitter sentiments and instead generates empathy toward the victims of tragedies. Based in Jordan, the writer and director of this film retells stories passed down from the generation before her: aunts, uncles, and grandparents who had lived through what Palestinian Arabs call the Nakba (“Catastrophe” in Arabic) on May 15th, 1948 — the forceful expulsion and displacement of some 750,000 to a million Palestinians from their homes by Zionist militia, and later the Israeli army. This is one of the more significant — but certainly not the only — events that have fueled the Palestinian-Israeli war to what it is now.
The timing to watch films such as this has never been more apt: 2023 will mark one of the significant eras of the Palestinian-Israeli issue, and we are bombarded with bitter news from every avenue. While we have plenty of peer-reviewed academic products accessible to us, there is a sense of sympathy that cannot come from words and numbers. Sallam reconciles the contrast of sterile numbers and facts in books and historical timelines to the spoken and recounted stories of her cultural past, creating a rare and deeply profound historical drama that enables the reader and watcher from afar to understand some context to the Palestinian-Israeli war now, in the perspective of survivors.
The timing to watch films such as this has never been more apt: 2023 will mark one of the significant eras of the Palestinian-Israeli issue, and we are bombarded with bitter news from every avenue. While we have plenty of peer-reviewed academic products accessible to us, there is a sense of sympathy that cannot come from words and numbers. Sallam reconciles the contrast of sterile numbers and facts in books and historical timelines to the spoken and recounted stories of her cultural past, creating a rare and deeply profound historical drama that enables the reader and watcher from afar to understand some context to the Palestinian-Israeli war now, in the perspective of survivors.
Farha takes the perspective of a bright 14-year-old girl who was promised that she could go to the city and study with the boys to become a teacher and potentially launch a school for girls, a high ambition that was previously rejected by her father. All these hopes were shot down, alongside her neighbors and friends, when the village was threatened with violence and raided. She is locked in a food shelter by her father, sealed in with plaster and forced to wait out the invasion with no sense of time or where her father is.
The film is narrated from the perspective of the protagonist. Inside the confined mud-walled den, we experience with her the tremors of gunshots, explosions come and go, the shame of having to relieve on the floor less than a meter away from where she sleeps, and the disappointment of realizing that the imprisonment will not be temporary. We feel the fear for the situation in which she is in and then for her loved ones; her alertness, weariness, and hope all begin to slowly meld with the viewer’s.
The film is narrated from the perspective of the protagonist. Inside the confined mud-walled den, we experience with her the tremors of gunshots, explosions come and go, the shame of having to relieve on the floor less than a meter away from where she sleeps, and the disappointment of realizing that the imprisonment will not be temporary. We feel the fear for the situation in which she is in and then for her loved ones; her alertness, weariness, and hope all begin to slowly meld with the viewer’s.
The film was accepted by roughly 40 different festivals, receiving praise for a poignant depiction of a historical event. It won awards such as the Red Sea International Film Festival 2021, Toronto International Film Festival 2021, Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2022, and Aswan International Film Festival 2022 among others. It was also sent to the 95th Academy Awards as Jordan’s official entry. Yet, due to its controversial nature, the film was only released in Jordanian theaters last August and was not shown at the 95th Academy Awards.
We, People, regardless of race, religion, or nationality, have a historically proven knack for allowing our emotions to drive our actions. Sometimes knowledge, whether it comes from an unofficial news source or a fictionalized film, may be a catalyst to unpleasant actions toward those around us, leading to the addition of more malice into an already problematic world. The focus of Farha is not to condemn any nationalist movement or people group, its ethos to understand and sympathize with the suffering and endangered rather than generate hatred to another. Instead, if there is an opportunity to sympathize with the tales and stories of those who have experienced a portion of the Israeli-Palestinian problem, such as watching the beautifully crafted Farha, it is an opportunity that is good to take.
We, People, regardless of race, religion, or nationality, have a historically proven knack for allowing our emotions to drive our actions. Sometimes knowledge, whether it comes from an unofficial news source or a fictionalized film, may be a catalyst to unpleasant actions toward those around us, leading to the addition of more malice into an already problematic world. The focus of Farha is not to condemn any nationalist movement or people group, its ethos to understand and sympathize with the suffering and endangered rather than generate hatred to another. Instead, if there is an opportunity to sympathize with the tales and stories of those who have experienced a portion of the Israeli-Palestinian problem, such as watching the beautifully crafted Farha, it is an opportunity that is good to take.
