Elia Suliman, the TIME THAT REMAINS (2009, 109 Min)
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November 17, 2015 (XXXI:12) Elia Suliman, THE TIME THAT REMAINS (2009, 109 min) (The version of this handout on the website has color images and hot urls.) Asia Pacific Screen Awards in 2009, Elia Suleiman won Jury Grand Prize for The Time that Remains (2009) and the film was also nominated for Best Film that same year. Cannes Film Festival 2009 Nominated for a Palme d'Or to Elia Suleiman Directed and written by Elia Suleiman Produced by Michael Gentile and Elia Suleiman Cinematography by Marc-André Batigne Film Editing by Véronique Lange Cast Ali Suliman…Eliza's Boyfriend Saleh Bakri…Fuad Doraid Liddawi…Ramalla IDF officer Elia Suleiman…ES Menashe Noy…Taxi Driver Ehab Assal…Man With Cell Phone / Tank Tarik Kopty…Neighbor Ziyad Bakri…Jamal Cannes Film Festival for The Time that Remains (2009). At the Maisa Abd Elhadi…Woman in West Bank taxi Cannes Film Festival in 2002, Suleiman won the Jury Prize and the Avi Kleinberger…Government Official Prize Competition for Divine Intervention (2002). He was also Baher Agbariya…Iraqi soldier nominated that same year for the Palme d'Or for Divine Yaniv Biton…Haganah Soldier Intervention (2002). At the 1996 Venice Film Festival he won the Nati Ravitz…IDF Commander Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Chronicle of a Disappearance Zuhair Abu Hanna…ES Child (1996). Suleiman wrote, directed, acted and produced in The Time George Khleifi…Mayor that Remains (2009) and Divine Intervention (2002); additionally, Lutuf Nouasser…Abu Elias (as Lotuf Neusser) he wrote, directed and produced Chronicle of a Disappearance Yasmine Haj…Nadia (1996), in addition to writing directing 7 Days in Havana (2012, Alon Leshem…IDF Officer segment "Diary of a Beginner") and Cyber Palestine (1999). He Amer Hlehel…Anis also directed To Each His Own Cinema (2007, segment "Irtebak"), Samar Tanus…Mother The Arab Dream (1998, Short), War and Peace in Vesoul (1997, Lior Shemesh…Police Officer Documentary), The Gulf War... What Next? (1993), Introduction to Alex Bakri…Man Who Shoots Himself the End of an Argument (1990, Documentary). He also starred in Ayman Espanioli…ES (Teenager) To Each His Own Cinema (2007) and Bamako (2006). Nina Jarjoura…Rose Leila Muammar…Thuraya Marc-André Batigne (cinematography) (b. [unknown]) has been Tareq Qobti…Neighbor a cinematographer on 20 films and television series including, La Shafika Bajjali…Mother (80) petite histoire de France (2014, TV Series, 1 episode), Meurtres Isabelle Ramadan…Aunt Olga au Pays basque (2014, TV Movie), The Golden Calf (2012), Daniel Bronfman…Policeman at bridge Death for Sale (2011), Kiss & Kill (2011, Short), The Time that Remains (209), Commissariats du monde: Casablanca (2009, TV Elia Suleiman (director, writer, actor, producer) (b. on July 28, Movie documentary), To Each His Own Cinema (2007, segment ": 1960 in Nazareth, Israel) was nominated Palme d'Or at the 2009 "Irtebak"), The Enigma of Sleep (2004, Documentary), Divine Sulieman—THE TIME THAT REMAINS-—2 Intervention (2002), The Rain Line (2001, Short), L'attrape-rêves before returning inside. Elsewhere, scenes of Suleiman visiting (2000), Le mur (2000, Short), Chronicle of a Disappearance Nazareth to look after his aging mother – their encounters played (1996), Les noms n'habitent nulle part (1994), Blanche colombe out without any dialogue – are almost unbearably moving. (1993, Short), Sama (1988), Last Cry (1988), Dis-moi, Marie... Suleiman’s triumphant return (it is seven years since (1985, Documentary short), Al Dhakira al Khasba (1980) Divine Intervention was released) coincides with a renaissance in Palestinian film-making. In recent months, film-makers such as Annemarie Jacir, Najwa Najjar, Sameh Zoabi and Scandar Kopti have all emerged to make their first feature films. Tawfiq Abu- Wael – whose auspicious 2004 feature debut Thirst garnered plenty of critical kudos – is also reputedly hard at work on his sophomore project Tanathor. Suleiman spoke to Sight & Sound about the experience of making his third, and best, film to date. Ali Jafaar: ‘The Time That Remains’ is more outwardly expansive than your previous films, yet you manage to retain much of your earlier use of silence and stillness. How did you balance these elements? Elia Suleiman: The challenge was to say a lot with a little, as in a haiku poem, where only a few words are used. The words are very understandable, such as ‘sun’ or ‘light’. You have the democratic space to read the simplicity that is being offered to Ali Jaafar: The Time That Remains (Sight & Sound, June 2014) you and to enter further into another layer of meaning – in the most Tragic elements pervade The Time That Remains. The third part of successful cases, to infinity. Elia Suleiman’s trilogy, which began with Chronicle of a I try to avoid singular metaphors. I try to avoid references Disappearance (1996) and Divine Intervention (2002) and charts that have only linear narrative. I am inexpressive in my films for the story of Palestinian dispossession and displacement since 1948, the same reason: if I start to express myself then I am simply is his most ambitious effort to date. Beginning in 1948 on the day putting my dramatic reactions in there, which is something I do not his hometown of Nazareth officially surrendered to the Israeli wish to do, because you need to give the spectator space to see army and continuing through to the most recent Intifada, the film what they want and to see with marginal narrative guidance. This artfully interweaves the personal and the political. Suleiman even is where, I think, the spectator is able to gain the pleasure of co- used his own parents’ diaries for inspiration while writing the participating and realise the inner emotion that she herself feels. A screenplay. lot of of what we feel in this film is not necessarily expressed on Suleiman is something of a contradiction. The 49-year-old the faces of the people who are engendering it: it is expressed in an is, along with Paradise Now director Hany Abu-Assad, the most interior fashion. I think there is an intimate complicity between the prominent Palestinian director working today, yet he has only spectator and this inner emotion. You might giggle at a humorous made three features. In person, he is famously loquacious and moment, or it might produce the solitude of a tear. The response is mischievous, while on screen he has studiously developed a near- something quite intimate and personal. I would like to keep it that silent persona, his deadpan gaze at events before him a subtle way. testament to the frequent absurdity of the Palestinians’ plight. This is a very personal, autobiographical film. You While raising independent financing for any project is used, for example, your father’s diary as source material. How never easy, particularly one dealing with as contentious a political did you manage to keep an objective distance from this subject as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Suleiman had to contend subjective history? with an unusual amount of obstacles this time. In 2007, with That was the challenge, to tell you the truth. I thought production only weeks away, Suleiman saw the project’s original about it a lot when I was writing the script. I did not want to fall financing collapse at the last minute. He spent the next few months into an epic genre even though this is in many ways an epic film. I fruitlessly trying to raise the necessary money before salvation wanted to maintain – and to see if I could succeed in maintaining – came in the form of London-based Saudi entrepreneur and film a very static, tense frame with a tableau-like theatricality while enthusiast Hani Farsi, as well as respected French film sales retaining the historical feel of the film. company Wild Bunch. I decided not to enter into what makes up a lot of the epic The Time That Remains is unquestionably Suleiman’s films: the sensationalism, the bombastic and predictable scenes. I masterpiece. With a lean running time of 110 minutes, the film wanted to remain completely unpredictable and yet tell something skilfully veers between absurdist sketches and scenes of emotional specific about the period. Each episode is, in some respects, a film poignancy. In one moment, a Palestinian youth leaves his house, within itself. Each episode is related to the following one, so oblivious to the Israeli tank stationed directly at his door. As the repetition is a risk to be taken to, for example, remind the viewer youth talks on his mobile, aimlessly moving from side to side, the that the person now falling apart as an old man is the same person tank’s oversized gun barrel tries to keep up with his every moment. who was stubbornly holding his stained gun as a youth. To create The mechanical wheezing of the tank becomes comically over- that kind of association through minimal information was another exaggerated as the youth continues his mundane conversation challenge. Sulieman—THE TIME THAT REMAINS-—3 How did you pick which episodes or which incidents to sit with you and have critical things to say about it. I am not in that portray? For example, the film doesn’t show the events or position yet. aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. For me, it would have The film had a very troubled production history. been very predictable to go into 1967 and the Six-Day War. I I keep thinking I should jot down in my mind some of wanted to hit on tones that are things that have been done to these films usually on the margins, and there by people who seem to be their are those who will make the guardians, but in reality are something connections with better-known else.