MURMAUER – WALL

Simone Bitton
France, Israel 2004 | 99 Min. | 35 mm, OmeU

Pales­tini­ans, in the midst of the ear-split­ting noise of bull­doz­ers, defy­ing the logic of war. “I wanted to show the emer­gence of the wall, to record this his­tor­i­cal moment, when the wall goes up, when people under­stand that the wall is no longer an idea but real­i­ty” says 44 the Israeli film direc­tor Simone Bitton. Her film is an his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ment because it shows the erec­tion of the wall, a real­i­ty made of con­crete. It is also an attempt to make the real­i­ty of every­day life under­stand­able.” I have the impres­sion that the real­i­ty of every­day life is becom­ing cra­zier, with­out any logic. But the wall is the height of lunacy. How on earth can one come to the con­clu­sion that a wall could be the solu­tion? I thought at the time: Now they have gone crazy.” MUR is an impres­sive tes­ti­mo­ny, a cin­e­mat­ic med­i­ta­tion on people and land­scapes. In the end one com­pre­hends what the wall has done.