PARADISE NOW (2005)

Cast

Plot

Said and Khaled are good friends living in the war torn West Bank, they are also freedom fighters and have just been given the honoured, if unenviable, task of conducting a suicide mission in the heart of Tel Aviv. Remarkably, given the subject matter, Paradise Now retains a certain, if admittedly surreal, normality throughout much of the film and, though dark, there is a realistic, if doom-laden, vein of humour, even a whiff of romance. Director Hany Abu-Assad provides a welcome and much needed interpretation of the desperate nature of modern ‘terrorism' while never attempting to justify the acts themselves. That the film stands alone as a thoughtful, intelligent and absorbing in its own right is almost a bonus.