Borderlines
Getting past roadblocks in the Middle East

U.S. cable news networks aren't exactly known for an interest in thorough documentary reportage – at least when no serial killers are involved. But there it was, on CNN earlier this month: a brief segment about checkpoints in the West Bank that incorporated clips from a documentary film. Of course, the title wasn't mentioned, and the clip only lasted a few seconds, so it was near impossible to determine which of the "Israeli documentaries" – as if no Palestinian filmmakers have tackled the subject – the network was citing. And predictably, CNN chose to highlight an Israeli army CD-ROM dedicated to "sensitivity training" rather than look closely at the human rights abuses captured in the film. Perhaps there wasn't enough time since a segment on tarantula tempura was coming up after the commercial break.

The film might have been Checkpoint, one of at least two docs at the San Francisco International Film Festival that scrutinizes the borderlines of continued Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shot with an inconspicuous camera, Yoav Shamir's film captures a variety of roadblock interactions between soldiers and civilians. Shamir's identity grants him an intimacy with the Israeli guards that a Palestinian filmmaker would have to struggle to achieve, and the faces of authority he reveals are multifaceted, if often maddening and immature. "Try to make me look good, not like the bad guy," one guard at Hebron's northern entrance pleads, but the arbitrary decision-making and power-tripping on display throughout Shamir's film make his futile request an exception. Perhaps predictably, the border police at Bethlehem's main entrance seem particularly drunk on authority, berating left-wing newspapers and ogling women. A school bus of Palestinian children (whose shy, then playful response to Shamir's camera results in some Truffaut-like moments) is detained, and on more than one occasion, traveling families are ordered to separate – at the Gaza Strip's Khan Yunes roadblock, a mother is forced to send her crying little boys ahead on their own, while she reports to a district coordinating officer.

Checkpoint's somber tone and rigorous adherence to doc-making principle differ greatly from the boisterous vocal spirit of Hany Abu-Assad's Ford Transit, which recently played the local installment of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. The subject of checkpoints brings out the rule-breaking rebel in Abu-Assad, whose film flouts doc conventions as cleverly as its protagonist dodges roadblocks. In comparison, Shamir opts for a critical portrait of a militaristic mind set.

A combination of these two approaches might be found in Route 181 - Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel, a collaboration between Palestinian filmmaker Michel Khleifi and Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan. Route 181 travels the borderline created by the 1947 resolution that divided Palestine into two states. Khleifi and Sivan's documentary wasn't available for press screening, but it's already generated controversy. Last month the French Culture Ministry canceled a screening of the film at France's largest documentary festival, citing fears that "the film's underlying hostility to the existence of Israel may be of a nature to encourage [anti-Semitic] acts." The filmmakers immediately fired off a response. "This shameful decision, based on such vague notions as the 'intense emotion' or the 'unease' of some, as well as 'the risks to public order,' is extremely serious," they wrote, adding, "To yield to pressure and to sectarian demands … will hardly pacify emotions nor lead to a real debate of the issues posed by the film." The French Culture Ministry – and CNN, for that matter – might not be interested in the debate or the issues, but this year's SFIFF is.

Johnny Ray Huston

'Checkpoint' screens April 25, 7 p.m., Kabuki; April 26, 5:30 p.m., PFA; April 27, 6:15 p.m., Kabuki. 'Route 181 – Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel' screens April 23, 1:30 p.m., PFA; April 24, 3 p.m., Kabuki. For theater information see box, page 54.