Promises

I saw an extremely moving and powerful movie last night called Promises. If you have ever wondered what goes on in Israel beyond hearing about suicide bombers blowing up buses and the Israelis building concrete walls around their settlements that are three times as long and twice as high as the Berlin wall then this is a movie you want to see. It is a documentary that follows the lives of seven children each from 9 to 12 years old who are growing up in Israeli and Palestinian sections in and around Jerusalem. Although they live only 20 minutes apart they live completely separate worlds divided by race, religion, and politics. What I found the most fascinating about this movie was the juxtaposition between the children's' knowledge and insight into the causes of the conflict mixed with deep seeded biases and in some cases hatred towards kids their own age that were not like them even though most of the Palestinian children had never met a Jewish child and vice versa.

This filmmaker, B.Z. Goldberg, develops friendships with these children over the course of the three years (1997-2000) that he spent shooting the movie and eventually convinces the children to meet each other. This process involves crossing both the physical boundaries of Israeli checkpoints and the psychological boundaries of preconceived notions and in-group out-group biases the children have held all their lives.

I admit that often times it is easy as an American without a clear understanding of what is going on over there to think to myself, "What is the big deal about this piece of land smaller than the state of New Jersey? Why can't they just come to some kind of agreement?" I quickly realized both how ignorant this view is and how sad it is to think that so many people here share this view, really having no idea what it is like over there. I rarely stop to think what it like for children to grow up in conflict. Both sides expressed fear of such a simple thing as riding a bus to school or walking to the grocery store simple activities that we take so much for granted here.

If you want to read more about the movie you check out their website or go to your local video store and check it out. It was nominated for an Academy award in 2002 so it has been out for awhile. What is great about the DVD is that in the extra material you can see the updated interviews with the kids now and see how their views have changed or in some cases stayed the same. Check it out and the let me know what you think!