Azza Zarour- Critical Paper 2

Paradise Now

When we were asked to choose a movie from our own orgions, I chose the movie Paradise now. I watched it over and over again and I wondered from which angle I should speak about it, whether to talk about its lighting, the use of colors, or its frames. I concluded that I will talk about the technical matters but I will be focusing the most on the idea of the movie itself because that what gave the movie its importance and exceptionality.


The “Paradise Now” is a Palestinian movie that was produced in 2005 and directed by Hany Abu Assaad. The film won the Golden Globe for the best foreign language film and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.


The movie talks about the story of two best friends living In Nablus, in the West Bank, who’ve experienced living under the occupation for their whole lives. They feel humiliation and consider themselves prisoners in their own land we follow their steps as they prepare themselves for their final act of resistance, a suicide mission in Tel-Aviv.


The film makes the one wonder how Palestinians lack the simplest things in life that anyone on the world can have, such as the freedom. It makes the one wonder how could such a life affect the youth and make them think of ways to get revenge. They do not live their lives like any other young men in their age. They do not have time for themselves to enjoy life. They only think of ways to resist and protect their land from their point of view.










The movie shows the obstacles the Palestinian face in their daily transportation. They have to stop on each check point, the check points are spread out through the country to separate the Palestinian cities from each others.


The colors and lighting were used wisely in the movie to support its idea. At the beginning the movies uses the natural colors, we see the nature, the blue sky. The contrast between the colors of what they are wearing and the nature is obvious. That adds beauty to the scene. the lighting at the scene where the Khalid, one of the two friends, is being told that he will do the suicide the next day is very dark. This use of the light support the idea of the scene as they wanted the plan to go very secretly without anyone knowing about it. Moving to another scene where the two friends are getting ready before they go to do the mission. The light which is being used there mostly appear as it all comes from the windows empowering the white color. That once again support the idea of that moment, it goes on well with the rituals that are being done to those two men. While washing them , putting the white clothes on them, letting them pray and leaving them in a room where it shows as if they are mediating, that all adds a special mode to those particular moments. The variety of the use of light continues to appear a lot in Paradise Now movie, for example, in the toilet scene the colors and light are blue. Maybe the blue color is used to reflect Khalid’s Mode at the moment where he feels so much down and do not know what to do.


In this movie I found it very interesting how an Arabic movie made it all the way to win such awards. Technically, I liked the use of colors and lighting, but again what I loved the most is the idea itself.