Some Worrying Signs Regarding the New Entebbe Movie

A few days ago, I remarked how great the upcoming movie 7 Days in Entebbe looks, stating at the time “nothing in the trailer suggested it will paint the terrorists sympathetically.”

I may have spoken too soon, judging by what director José Padilha said at the Berlin Film Festival.

  • He seems to have gone out of his way to portray the terrorists somewhat sympathetically
  • He draws parallels between Israeli and palestinian leaders, suggesting the reason for the difficulty in negotiating peace is they lose political standing in their countries.
  • He even claims Arafat rejected Ehud Barak’s Camp David proposal because “it would hurt him politically”, rather than the actual reason – that he actually did not truly want peace but rather a Palestinian state in all of Palestine (as even Ehud Barak – who was consulted by the film’s director – has admitted).
  • He clearly has an agenda against leaders more on the right, who are (legitimately) concerned about our safety

I have distilled the comments here so you can hear for yourselves:

I am definitely less enthused about this movie than I was, also judging by this film review:

After 2008’s Golden Bear-winning “Elite Squad,” its sequel “Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within” and the 2014 remake of Paul Verhoeven’s authoritarian policing classic, “RoboCop,” Padilha himself has been no stranger to the term “fascism” over his career. But here, he pulls his punches to an enervating degree, somewhat timorously locating the majority of the film’s actual conflict within the individual factions, as opposed to between them. So instead of any more provocative (and potentially illuminating) ideological divide, the film’s axis of sympathy runs between those who are willing to kill (or let-be-killed) for their principles, and those who are not. It’s an ingenious way of avoiding the political landmines that dot this contested territory, but it also makes it easy not to care.

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