The Time That Remains

We begin in the interior of a hired car. The driver soons get lost, and a heavy rainstorm begins. He pulls over, and wonders where he is. The passenger, in shadows, has said nothing.

This is the enigmatic prologue to The Time That Remains, Elia Suleiman's otherwise straight-forward autobiographical film that traces the Arab experience in Israel, from the founding of the Jewish state to today. It has a clear viewpoint, but it isn't an angry film, and for much of it the film has a droll humor, as the various actors playing Suleiman (he plays himself as a grown man) never say a word, and frequently just observe, hands hanging at their side, faces as impassive as Buster Keaton's.

After the prologue, we cut to 1948, when Jewish forces conquer the Palestinians. Elia's father, Fuoad, is a machinist who makes guns and works for the Arab resistance. He is captured and brutally beaten. The Israelis are painted as vicious, shooting a woman who mistakes them for Arabs, celebrating because she thinks they are victorious.

The film jumps to when Elia is a small boy. His mother and father live quietly in Nazareth, and the tone shifts to one of a domestic comedy. The neighbor gets drunk and douses himself with kerosene, but Fuoad takes the matches away. Elia gets in trouble at school, as the principal asks him, "Who told you that America is colonialist?"

Then we jump to when Elia is a teenager. He has been denounced for dissidence, and is forced to leave the country. But through it all we never hear him speak a word.

Finally, Elia returns as an older man. His mother is ill, and goes to the hospital (it is here that I realize they must be Christian, as she has a Christmas tree and a statue of Mary). Elia is almost like a ghost, having coffee with old friends and visiting a karoake bar with his mother's caretaker, but never interacts, and remains resolutely silent.

The film is dedicated to his parents, and it's a nice tribute, but as a film it doesn't really do much. It shows that Palestinians haven't had it easy living in Israel, but the Suleiman family seems to have lived a good life, if not exactly one that has honored their culture.