In Nazareth, an old couple lives wearily to the rhythm of the daily routine. On the other side of the border, in Ramallah, their son Tarek wishes to remain an eternal bachelor, their daughter is about to give birth while her husband lands a movie role and the grandmother loses her head... Between check-points and dreams, frivolity and politics, some want to leave, others want to stay but all have personal affairs to resolve.
Inyanim Ishiim
74/100
Pupil-overtakes-the-master time, as I like this even more than my favorite Elia Suleiman film (The Time That Remains). He gets a big, isolated thank you in the closing credits, confirming my late-breaking speculation about his influence; turns out Haj actually worked on Time That Remains, as a set decorator. Key word is "late-breaking," though. While Haj borrows Suleiman's droll absurdism and structural gamesmanship, her sensibility is warmer, less caustic; all of the vignettes—even the saddest one—conclude on lovely, unapologetically sentimental notes. And because the characters are related, it's not even clear for a long time that they inhabit what are essentially separate vignettes (as opposed to, say, a sprawling Altmanesque tapestry). The film gradually expands and then just as…
Predictably, turns out there isn’t that many in a police state. A series of well-staged droll vignettes around a checkpoint. Director Maha Haj worked with Elia Suleiman and this plays like Suleiman minus the bite.
PERSONAL AFFAIRS: Occasional grace notes, but this is pretty much a slowed down sitcom. Will delight old people at many festivals to come.
50
"This is the second film at Cannes this year, along with the Romanian Sieranevada, to tackle the way we sometimes take our loved ones for granted. While Sieranevada looked at this from a peculiarly Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Palestinian Personal Affairs, presented in the Un Certain Regard section, takes a more universal approach. By focussing on each character’s love life, Personal Affairs offers a gendered and decidedly feminist consideration of the way people can sometimes forget or refuse to treat their loved ones with the respect they deserve."
My full review for The Seventh Row.
Un punto de vista diferente al habitual sobre la vida cotidiana en Palestina. Para pasar un buen rato.
