A cynical but heartwarming message for Palestine and for people all around the world.
The opening sequence of It Must Be Heaven has something out of the ordinary. The sacred religious procession is blocked and goes wrong because of the greek orthodox church gatekeeper’s absurd excuse. This opening sequence makes the audience laugh and gives the overall idea of the tone and the philosophy of Elia Suleiman, the director, and actor of It Must Be Heaven. If even the holy religious ceremony has its own issue, is there any place that doesn’t have its own issues? If so, where is heaven? Elia throws this profound question to the audience and himself during the movie. It Must Be Heaven doesn’t have a bombastic narrative but a simple story about his journey from his own village to Paris and NewYork. Most of this film describes his observation of surroundings. His observation conveys his ideas and exploration of the world, human to the audience. However, this movie is not that heavy. It Must Be Heaven is full of the humorous depiction of the world, a thorough analogy of absurdity and poignant sarcasm.
Politically and geographically, Palestine is still recognized doubtfully by the world. In 2012, Palestine finally got an observer status by the UN, however, including Israel, USA and most other countries still recognize Palestine as territories inside of Israel, not as an independent nation. For a long time in their history and life, they’ve suffered from continuous conflicts and war with other countries because of the ideological quarrel. As a Palestinian film director, Elia Suleiman has made films about his country for sharing his idea about the identity of Palestine to all around the world, but It Must Be Heaven is not only for Palestine but also for the people all around the world. He remarked at his interview with Cineuropa as“ I think I was just trying to say that the conflict has extended its tentacles to everywhere else around the world and that there’s a global “Palestinianisation” of the state of things. That’s basically what this film is trying to indicate.”. Palestinianisation has lots of different meanings such as war, discrimination, isolation, invasion, economic difference. It Must Be Heaven makes the audience experience the Palestinianisation that happening globally by sharing the experience that he had from three different cities. This film encompasses and expresses all those subjects metaphorically or baldly sometimes. Elia projected stereotypical images of romantic and peaceful Paris or NewYork, He deployed lots of absurdness and sarcastic metaphor in those cities. At Paris, Tanks are roaming around the streets, jets are flying over his head. Police are riding roller-skates or unicycle for capturing criminals. Some medics give fancy food to the homeless. Such dreamlike but looks real things keep going on through his experience in NewYork as well. The cab driver who stopped his car abruptly and praised Elia when he finds out Elia is from Palestine. And at Central Park, police are trying to catch a girl who wears fake angel wings on her back, and put a Palestine flag on her naked chest. The most absurd scene was when Elia picks up some groceries at the store, and he realizes that every single person is carrying a gun casually— even a baby is wrapped with bullets. All those scenes seem not real or just funny, but it makes sense ironically. The audience could understand and have sympathy about those issues because we know there is no ‘Perfect Place’ on earth. Also, he uses overlapping images from three different cities, such as the image of invasion. At his village, some stranger trespassed to his garden every day to take care of Elia’s lemon tree, and when he was at the hotel in Paris, a sparrow disturbs his work. They all don’t have bad intentions in the first place, however, the concept of ‘invasion’ is recognized as malicious action. People are not used to caring about other people’s intention if they are in annoying situation. The foundation of the conflicts that happened throughout the big history of Palestine and other countries is an invasion. Elia suggests the new idea of ‘Invasion’ to the audience as a metaphor.
It Must Be Heaven provokes laughter and thoughts about the ideas that Elia offered from beginning to the end. This film has a circulation structure from the start of his hometown, and he left to Paris, NewYork and he finally came back to his hometown again and experience same things that he experienced before he left. But now, the audience could see it differently. The message has a similar structure. Beginning with his criticism about Palestine and his criticism that aims at the world, finally, he goes back to the fundamental question “what is the future of Palestine in this world?” and the audience gets a glimpse of the answer that he received during his journey. He puts “To Palestine” at the end of the movie, which makes the movie like an invaluable gift. – JK.Lee
PSU School of Film @ PIFF 