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Movies / On DVD / Divine Intervention
Divine Intervention

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Divine Intervention (2003)

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Reviews Counted:68

Fresh:55

Rotten:13

Average Rating:7.2/10

Consensus: Suleiman utilizes absurdist humor to craft a provocative, original film.

Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins

Genre: Foreign Films

Synopsis: DIVINE INTERVENTION writer-director Elia Suleiman has been compared to Woody Allen and Charlie Chaplin, presumably because he has Allen's intelligent, self-deprecating humor and Chaplin's gift for... DIVINE INTERVENTION writer-director Elia Suleiman has been compared to Woody Allen and Charlie Chaplin, presumably because he has Allen's intelligent, self-deprecating humor and Chaplin's gift for silent comedy. DIVINE INTERVENTION is not a silent film, but an intensely quiet comedy about daily life in the West Bank and Israel. Suleiman provides a series of not-altogether-related vignettes of people choked with boredom and drained of compassion, such as an angry mob of adolescents stabbing Santa Claus, or the neighbor who throws garbage onto the property next door (and complains when its thrown back), or checkpoint soldiers who sing and dance, and look menacing doing so. Though there is no distinct protagonist in this atypical satire, the filmmaker plays himself returning to Nazareth to help his ailing, hospitalized father (Nayef Fahoum Daher). Between visits to the hospital, where patients chain smoke in the halls outside their rooms, Suleiman falls for a West Bank woman (Manal Khader). Restrictions force them to carry out their relationship with only some hand-holding in the parking lot of the Israeli checkpoint between their two cities. DIVINE INTERVENTION favors extended, slow-paced scenes that seem suspended in time until they are punctuated with supercharged Arabian dance music like Madonna producer Mirwais Ahmadazi's "Definitive Beat" or Natacha Atlas's unbelievable cover version of Screamin' Jay Hawkins's "I Put A Spell On You." Though the characters often seem too distracted by anxiety and anguish to really connect with one another, Suleiman's sense of humor giddily overrides all the darker messages here, as in the climactic sequence--reminiscent of Monty Python--in which armed men in choreographed unison shoot at a target outlined in the figure of a veiled woman and she refuses to capitulate. [More]

Starring: Elia Suleiman, Emma Boltanski, Amer Daher, Jamel Daher

Starring: Elia Suleiman, Emma Boltanski, Amer Daher, Jamel Daher, Naeif Daher, George Ibrahim, Salman Nattor, Nazira Suleiman

Director: Elia Suleiman

Director: Elia Suleiman
Screenwriter: Elia Suleiman
Producer: Humbert Balsan, Avi Kleinberger, Joachim Ortmanns, Babette Schroder, Elia Suleiman
Studio: Avatar Films

[See More Credits]

Reviews for Divine Intervention

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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N/R

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Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
01/26/06
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The movie is so busy being clever, in ways that don't fit with each other, that it is unable to communicate.

Full Review Source: UK Critic | comment Comment
03/02/03
Ian Waldron-Mantgani
Ian Waldron-Mantgani
UK Critic
N/R

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Full Review Source: FilmFour.com | comment Comment
01/21/03
FilmFour.com
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N/R

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Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
01/20/03
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

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Full Review Source: This is London | comment Comment
01/18/03
Neil Norman
Neil Norman
This is London

Unfortunately the gags here vary enormously in their effectiveness.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
01/16/03
Tom Dawson
Tom Dawson
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

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Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
01/08/03
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

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Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | comment Comment
08/07/08
Mark Halverson
Mark Halverson
Sacramento News & Review

Elia Suleiman is a talented man who made a striking film to voice the sorrows of his people and there are sorrows to be lamented, but his film is drawn from an ugliness and intellectual dishonesty that besmirches any lesson that could possibly be extracte

Full Review Source: Bangitout.com | comment Comment
08/17/06
Jordan Hiller
Jordan Hiller
Bangitout.com

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Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
12/06/05
Film Threat
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

A mordantly amusing black comedy about life among the Arab citizens of Israel.

Full Review Source: All Movie Guide | comment Comment
09/08/05
Josh Ralske
Josh Ralske
All Movie Guide

Life in the Arab-Israeli region has a random and arbitrary unintelligibility, if this surreal stylization validly reflects it. But, validity comes into question.

Full Review Source: Cinema Signals | comment Comment
08/07/05
Jules Brenner
Jules Brenner
Cinema Signals

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Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | comment Comment
05/13/05
Apollo Guide
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

...a non-narrative film that mixes agitprop with Pythonesque silliness and an almost stately, rueful kind of slapstick that recalls Buster Keaton in tone if not physicality.

Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | comment Comment
01/17/05
Philip Martin
Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

El director hilvana sensaciones, alegorías, representaciones más bien absurdas, e inspiradas en el cine mudo o la comedia física de Buster Keaton o Jacques Tati.

Full Review Source: Uruguay Total | comment Comment
11/03/03
Enrique Buchichio
Enrique Buchichio
Uruguay Total

Suleiman works in slow, poetic scenes that build to hilarious climaxes.

Full Review Source: About.com | comment Comment
10/15/03
Jurgen Fauth
Jurgen Fauth
About.com

Provocative yet self-reflective, hilarious yet heartbreaking chronicle of love and pain.

Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | comment Comment
08/28/03
Duane Dudek
Duane Dudek
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A hard film to get, but an enjoyable one to watch.

Full Review Source: EricDSnider.com | comment 1 Comment
08/27/03
Eric D. Snider
Eric D. Snider
EricDSnider.com

As the film progresses, it becomes considerably more focused . . . even though it doesn't always make sense.

Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City | comment Comment
08/15/03
Jeff Vice
Jeff Vice
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

Some of Suleiman's symbols are maddeningly obtuse, while others -- like the final shot of a pressure cooker -- are ridiculously obvious.

Full Review Source: Salt Lake Tribune | comment Comment
08/15/03
Sean Means
Sean Means
Salt Lake Tribune
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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