Movie Review
War film From Ground Zero offers closeup of Gaza from many voices
Scene from From Ground Zero: Stories from Gaza.
The war between Israel and Hamas that has been going on since October 2023 has had far-reaching effects, especially for the people in the region. While there are many perspectives on the political and military conflict, a new film presents the resulting humanitarian crisis from a specific point of view: that of Palestinian filmmakers inside Gaza.
From Ground Zero: Stories from Gaza is an anthology of 22 separate short films, each 3-6 minutes long, from Palestinian directors living in Gaza during the war. The film has been short-listed for an Oscar for Best International Feature.
Some of the shorts feel like documentaries, others feel like created stories, but all show the brutal impacts - both physical and psychological - inside Palestine during the war. Almost all of the films have their subjects navigating the rubble of bombed-out buildings, and many of them depict the vast tent cities that have popped up to house the displaced citizens, while war drones buzz overhead.
The stories of the shorts vary from simple to relatively complex. Multiple films feature an individual person describing his or her daily life, although the filmmakers use different techniques to embellish the relatively basic idea. Some pack in a lot of narrative into a small amount of time; one titled “School Day,” which shows a young boy preparing himself for a version of school, has a gut punch of an ending.
The most memorable segment is “Soft Skin,” in which a woman helps a group of children compose stop motion animations using characters created from construction paper. It contains a haunting detail of kids showing that their mothers have written their names on their arms to be able to identify them if they become victims of a bombing. The animated sequences depicting such a scenario are both beautiful and tragic at the same time.
The films are about evenly split between those that focus solely on adults and those that use children. Naturally, those that do feature kids have heightened emotions. But that innocence cuts both ways, as some of the films show the kids still finding a way to have fun, a small measure of joy in otherwise joyless surroundings.
In fact, despite all of the devastation, some hope remains among a handful of filmmakers. One depicts a comedian continuing to perform so that he can bring some laughter to people’s days. Another has a director actively seeking out stories about happy things, which she finds in a group of people who play music together. One lyric from a song they sing - “It’s certain the happy days will return” - indicates that they refuse to let the war take away their expectation that life will be normal again someday.
All of the films combine for a crucial, if excruciating, account of this period of time in the war-torn region. As a viewer, you don’t want there to be more stories, but you also can’t look away as each of the filmmakers lay out intensely personal narratives. If nothing else, it gives people with little other means a chance to have their voices be exposed to the world at large.
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From Ground Zero: Stories of Gaza is now playing in select theaters.
