Paradise Now follows the last 48 hours in the lives of two Palestinian suicide bombers. It’s a testament to the film’s emphasis on humanity over politics that you simply come to see it as the story of two disillusioned, conflicted and confused men – desperate, angry youth who could be from any oppressed region of the globe. Living under totalitarian conditions that are reminiscent of South African
apartheid, Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) have squeezed out a pair of unpromising lives amid the rubble of the West Bank city of Nablus. When they are tapped for a double suicide mission in Tel Aviv, it is their chance to give meaning to an otherwise unremarkable existence. Khaled is openly nervous and committed to the cause, but the burning silence of Said suggests a mind still trying to sort things out (Nashef does more with his eyes than most actors accomplish with 10 pages of dialogue). How Said navigates the predicament he’s put himself in turns Paradise Now into a deeply personal story with
front-page implications.
