Cinema · A way to begin
Chronicle of a Disappearance
سجل اختفاء
Elia Suleiman · 1996
Synopsis
A filmmaker, played by Elia Suleiman himself, returns to Israel after twelve years in New York. In Nazareth, he observes almost without a word his parents, a souvenir seller who waits for tourists and fills bottles of holy water at the tap, and fishermen who gossip. In Jerusalem, the tone turns political: a young Arab woman looks in vain for housing, the filmmaker picks up a policeman's walkie-talkie.
Context
Suleiman shot in Nazareth with his own parents, Fuad and Nazira Suleiman, relatives and non-professional actors. The film is divided into two notebooks, “Nazareth, personal diary” and “Jerusalem, political diary”, separated by a lecture in which the filmmaker's microphone whistles before he has spoken. It mixes fiction, documentary, diary and home movie, in Arabic, Hebrew and other languages. It was released in France in 1998.
Who it is for
A film that is disorienting for anyone expecting a story: unconnected sketches, fixed shots, little dialogue, absurd humour.
Prizes and reception
Prize for best first film at the Venice Film Festival in 1996; critics praised its irony and absurd humour.
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