Tears of Gaza

Disturbing, powerful and emotionally devastating, Tears of Gaza is less a conventional documentary than a record - presented with minimal gloss - of the 2008 to 2009 bombing of Gaza by the Israeli military. Photographed by several Palestinian cameramen both during and after the offensive, this powerful film by director Vibeke Løkkeberg focuses on the impact of the attacks on the civilian population.

The film shuttles between the actual bombings and the aftermath on the streets and in the hospitals. The footage of the bombs landing is indelible and horrifying, but it is on par with much of the explicit imagery on hand. White phosphorous bombs rain over families and children, leaving bodies too charred to be identified. The footage here is extremely graphic and includes children’s bodies being pulled from ruins. Recounting the horrors she has witnessed, one young girl collapses and sinks out of the frame.

Years of economic embargo have left the area deprived of resources and have strained an already impoverished infrastructure. The wounded are carried to hospital for lack of ambulances, and an absence of fire trucks leaves home owners to put out fires on their own. What's immediately apparent is that decades of military activity have made the population angry, nihilistic and vengeful. As one young boy says, "Even if they give us the world, we will not forget." Lokkeberg contrasts these scenes with footage of bachelor parties, weddings and visits to the beach - social activities that epitomize daily life in Gaza during more peaceful times.

Tears of Gaza makes no overriding speeches or analyses.

The situation leading up to the incursion is never mentioned. While this strategy may antagonize some, it's a useful method for highlighting the effects of the violence on the civilian population. Similar events certainly occurred in Dresden, Tokyo, Baghdad and Sarajevo, but of course Gaza isn't those places. Tears of Gaza demands that we examine the costs of war on a civilian populace. The result is horrifying, gut-wrenching and unforgettable.

(Excerpt from the Jerusalem Film Festival program guide)

It is difficult, apparently impossible, to make an objective film about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, a conflict that arouses visceral reactions not only among the rival sides. Vibeke Lokkeberg’s documentary does not pretend to objectivity. Rather, it tries to sketch a picture from inside Gaza during and after Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. We do not see combatants, only children and parents who lament their horrible situation; children and parents on whom the bombings left not only physical but psychological scars; human beings who lost not only their property but also those closest to them. Tears of Gaza moves from situations captured by Palestinian photographers during the War itself, to the aftermath and the repercussions of the fighting on the souls of the children of the Strip — a lot of desperation and rage, and not much hope.

It could be that our hearts become calloused to these kinds of images when seen over and over on the television screen. In the cinema hall the effect is different, and the emotional reactions sparked among the viewers will not necessary fall easily on either side of the political divide. It will not be simple, but those of us who come to the screening free of prejudice will discover an unsettling, gut–wrenching, and simultaneously thought–provoking film.