Film review : Arna's Children

A car ambles its way through a street flanked by protesters at an Israeli Highway checkpoint. We catch sight of an old woman, one of the louder protesters, yelling “You’re the face of the occupation!” Meet Arna Mer Khamis, a woman elderly in appearance but young and feisty in demeanour, in spite of suffering from cancer. She, a Zionist, married a Palestinian Arab and settled on the West Bank. She spent majority of her life trying to better the education system, after the schools were closed down by the Israeli occupation.
She was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, the Swedish parliament’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She used the prize money to open the Freedom Theatre where she gave sanctuary to a handful of pre-adolescent kids. Here, in Jenin, death, destruction and paranoia are considered mundane.
The theatre group acted as a canvas upon which the children could voice and vent their angst, frustration and fear into better outlets. Arna’s son Juliano Mer Khamis filmed footage of the theatre group and served as co- director for this documentary along with Danielle Danielle of the Netherlands. Through Juliano’s on screen and off screen presence, we get well-acquainted with brothers Youssef and Nidal and their friend Ashraf, Ala, Zakaria and Daoud as they put on plays, put forth their opinions and appreciate Arna’s hard work . However, there isn’t a much coveted happy ending to this tale.
After Juliano returned to Jenin, years after his mother’s death, he slowly began tracking down each of Arna’s Children. The theatre had already been destroyed by then. It turns out that most of the kids, now grown-up, went on to lead a life of militancy and violence, taking cue from their surroundings.
“Acting is like throwing a Molotov cocktail,” says Youssef. Youssef went on to join the Islamic Jihad and was killed along with Nidal. We first see Ala staring bleakly into the sunlight as he sits on the rubble of his house which was demolished by Israeli forces. Ala grows up to become the leader of the Aqsa Brigades in Jenin. On 26th November 2002, he was killed. Just two weeks after the birth of his son.
With a subject as delicate and intricate as the calamitous situation on the West Bank, the documentary is handled intelligently. With great editing, the film roams to and fro from the past and present, giving the contrast between childhood and adulthood. Juliano silently tries to fathom what led these talented kids to join in on the brutality. It’s a sheer vestige of a debauched system where war is a contagious disease. In a war-torn region, catharsis was gained through performance art. Later on, the same war was waged against war, only this time, through death. But, can art really sustain itself against violence and politics? Can art really be the form of salvation that can combat the inertia and hopelessness of war?
On 4th April 2011, Juliano was shot dead outside the theatre. An unlawful murder of a true artist and an attempt to denigrate art and any form rebellion.
‘Arna’s Children’ serves as a canticle sung fearlessly, denouncing war and its loathsome implications and upholding art as a form of sublimation and tranquillity.