Dreaming of Heaven in Hell - "Paradise Now"

Rhett 2022-03-22 08:01:03

I've always wondered if Said saw his short life, or just the stars in the sky, or the soul of his father, when he lay in front of his father's curtain with the bomb clinging to him that night. Yes, eternal heaven. Because after that, he seemed to be dead, when he got on the bus full of Israeli soldiers and civilians numbly, when the high-rise buildings in Tel Aviv lined the sunny beach and the poverty, noise, chaos and crowding in the Palestinian refugee camps. In contrast, he carefully wiped the sweat from his body where the bomb met, he gently kissed the woman who was secretly affectionate, he escaped from his mother's window, he gave up all hope of life, but he couldn't go back. Refugee camp, in this hell on earth, he dreamed that he would be in heaven.

Most of the time, the tone is yellowish, like an old movie, or just the yellow sand in a refugee camp, but the lines are so clear, just like the not-so-distant historical dust war contradictions are suppressed by modern people who live hard, ironic with unavoidable pain.

Khaled and Said, the driving force for them to become human bombs is not all religious belief, Khaled admitted under Suha's pressure that "we are dead in life, we use death to escape suffering", what kind of pain and despair is this, It is something that a life in tranquility can never understand. The function of a movie is to make you feel the feelings you have never experienced, experience the pain you have never imagined, and ponder the problems in the monotonous life that you have never realized. So when you see the frozen expression on Said's photo and the empty eyes on the car, you will really feel how fragile and stubborn you are in the universe.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has lasted for more than half a century. Jerusalem has lost the sacred meaning of religion and has become the resentment solidified by the spiritual beliefs of war elements and resistance organizations. The distance between Allah and God, Jehovah, is separated by It is the selfish and tyrannical hatred and killing that human beings can never give up. The irony is that the teachings of religion always make us give up these evils in order to seek salvation and to ascend to heaven. We know that every moment of heaven is ruthlessly shattered by us.

"Heaven Now" swept major awards in 2005. The film is about a human bomb in Palestine, but the director is a Dutch Jew. They are all caught in the quagmire of this battle, questioning the possibility of being killed in the war. What is the meaning of dead lives, civilians who died under human bombs? Just after watching the movie, I have more questions, do they have other options? Do we have other options? Behind the patience and non-violent resistance, there is no guarantee that contempt and more violent aggression will not be exchanged. If this is the reality, and this is the nature, do we really deserve to have the Garden of Eden, Utopia, do we really deserve to have Heaven?

We are already numb. Every day there are endless bombs, endless blood, unstoppable conflicts, and unstoppable hypocrisy of politicians. No one will realize anymore that a broadcast on TV, a line of words in a newspaper, a link in a web page, behind each of them, there is a bloody life, like you and me, who once struggled to live. Life, has lost any life that chooses to live. More and more people just like the gossip hyped by the stars, the flood of vulgar pornography, and the "social news" of various perverted topics.

I always hear John Lennon singing Image when I see this reality, and every time there's a global peace campaign, it's an unforgettable soundtrack, but that's him, that's who he is, that's how he was shot Killed on the streets of New York. I can never forget this scene that I have never experienced, maybe at that moment, heaven has abandoned us forever.

May God forgive us all.

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Extended Reading

Paradise Now quotes

  • Jamal: Do you remember the martyr Abul Azzam? He was very security minded. He said, if you fear death you're already dead. If you don't, you'll have a sudden and painless death. He drove the Mossad crazy. They spent millions trying to capture him. When they surrounded him, and he knew his fate was sealed, he opened the door and shouted, you've come to late!

  • Said's Mother: [to her son talking with his mouth full] Turn off that radio in your mouth.