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Another Road Home (2005)
Runtime: 79 mins
Synopsis: "In ANOTHER ROAD HOME, Danae Elon illuminates both the personal and the political as she explores the relationship of two families, one Israeli and the other Palestinian. A powerful and moving achievement." --Joan Didion, Author "You always used to iron my army uniform!" is something a... "In ANOTHER ROAD HOME, Danae Elon illuminates both the personal and the political as she explores the relationship of two families, one Israeli and the other Palestinian. A powerful and moving achievement." --Joan Didion, Author "You always used to iron my army uniform!" is something a child would say to a parent. In fact, it is an exclamation of wonder by Israeli filmmaker Danae Elon to Mahmoud "Musa" Obeidallah, the Palestinian man who had been her caregiver, and who was, in two decades with the Elon family, more like a third parent to her. It is a statement that lies at the crux of her documentary, ANOTHER ROAD HOME. The film chronicles the deeply personal story of an Israeli woman's quest to find her Palestinian caregiver, and places a human face on a situation that most of us are acquainted with only through troubling headlines. Danae notes, "Our hearts and lives are shaped by the people that have always surrounded us, those who have nourished and loved us. Musa became part of our family, part of the way I formed my perception and grew to understand my surroundings; no war could take that away from me." This hopeful message informs every frame of ANOTHER ROAD HOME. Shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, Danae's Jewish parents, the famous author Amos Elon, and former literary agent Beth Elon, hired Musa Obeidallah, the Muslim father of eleven children, to take care of their six-month old daughter on a daily basis. Musa commuted from Palestine to his job in Jerusalem for the next twenty years, until Danae moved to New York to study at NYU Film School. Education was also on Musa's mind. With the money he earned, he sent his sons to study and make their careers in America. Against the mounting tensions of the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Intifada, the two families lost track of each other for ten years. During this time, Danae realized how much of an influence Musa had on her, and that she needed to revisit her past and find this remarkable man. ANOTHER ROAD HOME takes her from her current home in New York to an Arab-American neighborhood in New Jersey, to the Palestinian village of Battir in the occupied territories, and back to her birthplace in Jerusalem. This evocative film brings to life a story that is both heartwarming and painful as it confronts the frictions and affection shared by Danae and Musa's sons; between the Obeidallah family and the Elon family; between Danae and her parents. Exploring the delicate boundaries between family, class, and politics with unsentimental acuity seasoned by deep affection, director Danae Elon illuminates not only the often troubled political heritage shared by these two families, but a hope for the future in her quest to find ANOTHER ROAD HOME. [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
Reviews
... a film that handles tragic ironies lightly and offers simple hope in lieu of policy prescriptions.
'From the milk we drank together, something of my blood, my life is in you,' Musa tells Danae, and explains more about this moving portrait than any political debate could.
[The filmmaker] veers into self-indulgence, but Obeidallah's drive to give his kids a better life - even at the risk of abandoning their homeland - is touching.
Becomes an odd companion piece to the stunning Capturing the Friedmans, one of the most disturbing chronicles of family dysfunction ever documented.
The man at its heart is a 76-year-old Palestinian named Musa, and if he and we are never quite sure what the movie is truly about it's still a pleasure to make his acquaintance.
Compelling with its inside-out look at the crisis of the Middle-East, even if there is a fair bit of narcissism involved.
Though, at times a bit incomplete, this documentary is still quite endearing, engaging and extremely educational in matters of politics and heart.
Elon shines a light on Israeli-Palestinian relations in ways that are profound, human and hopeful.
A work of powerful humanism that could unsettle entrenched points of view.
Elon presumably intends to send a positive message about individual relationships transcending politics, but the film leaves too much unsaid to do so.
Full of heart-rending moments, in which people of good faith search for answers to what, in the end, remain painfully irreconcilable questions.
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