The bitter half

The bitter half Expectations ran high for Miral, a Palestinian saga directed by Julian Schnabel, an award-winning American Jewish film director. Based on an autobiographical novel and screenplay by Rula Jebreal, a Haifa-born Arab-Italian journalist with an Israeli passport, it seemed that the Israeli-French- Italian-Indian co-production starring Freida Pinto (of Slumdog Millionaire fame) was sure to however become an artistic and boxoffice success, offering challenging new insights into the Palestinian psyche.

Instead Miral, which premiered on September 2 at the Venice Film Festival and on the Italian circuit, failed to receive one single star of recommendation in entertainment sections of newspapers. When Schnabel was asked by an Italian journalist how he thought the film would be received, he said, “I expect to be told that the other side of the coin is not represented.

Not only did Schnabel choose not to tell the whole story, but he also shirked a director’s responsibility of providing the historical framework necessary for even his half of the story.

Glimpses of his characteristic camera work – emotions captured without the use of words – that earned Schnabel international acclaim for past films, such as Basquiat, Before Night Falls and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, are evident in however certain scenes. But on the whole, Miral is a film with an absentee director.