Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- TRADITIONS IN WORLD CINEMA
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 A Chronicle of Palestinian Cinema
- 2 From Bleeding Memories to Fertile Memories
- 3 About Place and Time: The Films of Michel Khleifi
- 4 Without Place, Without Time: The Films of Rashid Masharawi
- 5 The House and its Destruction: The Films of Ali Nassar
- 6 A Dead-End: Roadblock Movies
- 7 Between Exile and Homeland: The Films of Elia Suleiman
- Conclusion
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Filmography
- Index
4 - Without Place, Without Time: The Films of Rashid Masharawi
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- TRADITIONS IN WORLD CINEMA
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 A Chronicle of Palestinian Cinema
- 2 From Bleeding Memories to Fertile Memories
- 3 About Place and Time: The Films of Michel Khleifi
- 4 Without Place, Without Time: The Films of Rashid Masharawi
- 5 The House and its Destruction: The Films of Ali Nassar
- 6 A Dead-End: Roadblock Movies
- 7 Between Exile and Homeland: The Films of Elia Suleiman
- Conclusion
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Filmography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Rashid Masharawi's films do not explore the enchanted past that is restored in Michel Khleifi's films, nor do they spin – as Khleifi's cinema does – a fantasy of open expanses. Rather, his cinema delineates the refugees' here-and-now daily struggle for survival within a space that has been gradually diminishing, from the time Palestinians were driven out of their native villages and gathered in the refugee camps up to the period of siege that they endured during the Second Intifada. Attempts to burst out to the open spaces of the land and references either to the country's past or to future plans to return to it are presented in his films in a disruptive, insinuated manner, in a dream sequence, or in association with madness.
In an interview with Ali Waked (1993), Masharawi explains:
Jaffa is always present in my subconscious. It is true that I love Jaffa, but I do not have to mourn over it in a blatant and acrimonious way. It won't help if I shout all the time ‘I am from Jaffa and this is my house!’ The tedious repetition of my story as a refugee would only diminish its strength and significance. It would also lessen its reliability and would cast doubts on my beliefs and on the justice of my claims.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Palestinian CinemaLandscape, Trauma and Memory, pp. 101 - 118Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2008