Special Event Summary — Lullaby

For my relevant public event I attended a special screening of the 2005 Israeli documentary, Lullaby, by Adi Arbel This film documents the mothers of Israeli and Palestinian mothers who have lost children due to the never-ending conflicts between Israel and Palestine. Some of the stories they tell are quite horrifying and disturbing, one mother’s child was only 5 months old and was killed when a stone thrown by Palestinians hit him. Other kids were killed in explosions, martyrs, ambushes, or fires. It is very unsettling how many people are either killed or injured due never ending violence between Israel and Palestine.

Although all the mothers still grieve over their lost children, some of them question whether or not it was worth it to have had kids at all because of the pain and suffering of losing a child. They all also say they still go out everyday and hope or think they might still see their child, running or playing at school or with other kids. I think most parents who lose a child anywhere in the world probably have these similar episodes and thoughts, however, I did feel like the mothers in the movie were very well composed when talking about their children, not to say they weren’t hurt and upset and that they didn’t love their children or care about them, but I think tragedies and loss of loved ones is probably so much more frequent in Israel and Palestine that the mothers of these lost children are fairly tough skinned. I don’t want to give the idea that they weren’t emotional about the loss of their children, many of them did have moments where they broke down and needed a second to stop and mourn their loss, but their was feeling that if this show had been made in America I would predict that most mothers would be much more hysterical over their loss just based on the fact that there are so many more tragedies in Israel I feel like people over there have to compose themselves in a much stronger way than we would in America.

Although this movie is a documentary, I think it is very un-cinematic. Before the screening there were several Middle-Eastern filmmakers who talked about the style of movies from that region and they are not at all like the glamorous Hollywood movies we are used to, and they are anti-consumerism and want to have almost an uncomfortable realistic style, however, this film really had no cinematic qualities whatsoever. In class we watched many movies that successfully had this realist, nit gritty everyday life style, movies like Lamerica, Caché, and the movie that ultimately reminded me most of this film Lullaby, Flowers From Another World. Again, the comparison is hard because Lullaby is a documentary, however, I do think that most documentaries can utilize artistic and cinematic qualities through camera angles, inserts, edits etc. This film was comprised solely of medium shots of the mothers being interviewed that almost never changed and the camera never moved. There were a few inserts, one of a mothers hand (which seemed out of place considering it was the only insert like that) and then another of a poem written by one of the mothers deceased daughter’s. These shots worked, however, there were so few of them they were almost awkward and it made the audience wonder why there weren’t more inserts. I think maybe you could argue that the film maker really wanted to leave you stuck in this room with just the mothers and not allow you to leave their feelings and emotions, however, if this was the case I think it simply didn’t work because the audience needed new imagery the 5^th and 6^th times we cut back to the same mothers talking about their loss.

Overall, this movie has a great message and a great purpose, to try and inform these two conflicting nations, Israel and Palestine, not only how much harm they cause to each other, but how similar they are to each other. When interviewing mothers from both sides of the conflict who have had such similar losses and lost children due to almost identical attacks you think they would learn how unnecessary and unproductive this ongoing fighting is. One mother is even quoted in the piece saying, “losing a child is such a horrible experience I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy.” I think that is really the most powerful line in this piece and really hammers home what this movie is trying to tell to both the people of Israel and Palestine. I also think this movie has a very relevant place in our class in the way it tries to unite two conflicting nations, in so many movies we’ve watched about Europe in class they are about the relationships between nations just like Lullaby is.