5 Broken Cameras

In contrast to the all-talking-head format of The Invisible War, 5 Broken Cameras, also a nominee for Best Documentary Feature, has no talking heads. It does have voiceover narration by one its directors, Emad Burnat. But the rest is the footage he shot of protests in a Palestinian village in the West Bank.

The film is structured in segments, each ending in one of Burnat's cameras being broken in a demonstration of some sort. He buys the first camera in 2005 to use to film his newborn son, Gibril. But at the same time the Jewish settlements encroach upon his villagers land, as olive trees (the livelihood of the village) are uprooted and a barricade is built.

Almost obsessively, Burnat films the protests, including the Israeli army's response, which is usually to lob tear gas grenades as casually as boys throwing snowballs. The soldiers are depicted as faceless automatons, surely obeying orders but then going over the line--one protester, unarmed and with his hands tied behind his back, is shot point blank in the leg.

Since we only have Burnat's point of view, it's difficult to understand the entire issue. Certainly, given his footage, we can be outraged at the treatment of the Palestinians. The Israeli army could use a different tactic in how to handle unarmed protests (to be sure, there is a lot of rock throwing, though). I would have liked to hear the Jewish point of view, but that would be another movie (a film about the Israeli secret service, called The Gatekeepers, is also nominated this year).

Burnat shows a certain fearlessness in obdurately filming the story. One camera saves his life, as it stops a bullet meant for his head. Two of his friends are shot during the ordeal. I was a little angry that the villagers used children, including Gibril, as protesters, and then cried to the soldiers to the effect, "You wouldn't hurt children!" It's a bit shameless to use kids in that way.

As a kind of amateur journalism, 5 Broken Cameras is intermittently fascinating, if one sided. It was co-directed by Guy Davidi, who presumably put the footage together. I imagine Burnat, who was a peasant harvesting olives in the West Bank, never dreamed he'd get nominated for an Oscar.