Palestine 36

For her latest project, Annemarie Jacir faced a towering challenge. She had a bigger budget and the chance to work on a far larger scale than her earlier features, Wajib, When I Saw You, and Salt of This Sea. A period film funded across continents but shot entirely in the region, it came with the inherent technical and logistical hurdles. And the subject? The Palestinian people, at a critical turning point in their history.

Palestine 36 is the remarkable result. Jacir’s film enlists both talented newcomers and stars such as Jeremy Irons and Hiam Abbass to tell a story of individual actions against the roiling history of 1936 during the British Mandate for Palestine.

Rare archival footage sets the stage, providing a potent counterpoint to the dramatic action: Jerusalem’s bustling mix of peoples in the wake of the Ottoman Empire’s dissolution, the migration of European Jews fleeing the Nazis, and British attempts to impose colonial rule.

In the midst of this, Yusuf (Karim Daoud Anaya) shunts between his traditional village and the rapidly changing city. Young Afra (Wardi Eilabouni) tries to navigate change all around her with the aid of her grandmother (Abbass). A dissatisfied port worker (Jacir regular Saleh Bakri) finds the pressures of earning a living and supporting his family drawing him into a rebel movement. Can British officialdom, represented powerfully by Irons, even keep up?

Jacir moves her story forward at pace, balancing plot lines, tones, and character motivations against a strong grasp of the complex history. The cinematography is precise and beautiful but never showy. The score is haunting.

In delivering a period film that foregrounds character development against shaping forces of economics, politics, and identity, Jacir more than meets the challenge.