Films that demonstrate the folly of political violence as a means for resolving conflict and/or show the superiority of nonviolent political conflict resolution.
O JERUSALEM CRIES OUT FOR PEACE BETWEEN ISRAEL & THE PALESTINIANS Nearly a docudrama, O Jerusalem begins at New York in 1946, when Said Chahine (played by Said Taghmaoui) and his Jewish friend Bobby Goldman (played by JJ Feild) are happily enjoying each other’s company. When the British mandate appears to be at an end, […]
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH PORTRAYS AMERICA MEETING A WATERLOO In the Valley of Elah, directed by Paul Haggis, is a combination of Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) but focuses on the Iraq War. One day, Hank Deerfield (played by Tommy Lee Jones) receives a telephone call from
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SEPTEMBER DAWN INDICTS MORMONS, INCLUDING BRIGHAM YOUNG, FOR A MASSACRE ON 9/11 In 1844, Joseph Smith, Jr., was assassinated in Illinois. Two years later, Brigham Young led many of Smith’s followers on a trek that ended up in barren Utah, then a part of México. After the Mexican War, in 1850, Utah was recognized as
PIERREPONT PROVES THATEXECUTIONS DESTROY THE EXECUTIONER Pierrepoint, directed by Adrian Shergold, is a biopic of England’s most famous and most prolific executioner, Albert Pierrepoint (played by Timothy Spall). From 1933 to 1955, according to titles at the end of the film, he performed 608 hangings, some of which are portrayed on the screen. Hanging was
BLACK FRIDAY RECOUNTS THE EVENTS OF INDIA’S WORST TERRORISM Beginning and ending with a quote from Gandhi that the world will become blind following the “eye for an eye” maxim, Black Friday focuses on the terrorist bombing of landmark buildings in Bombay on March 12, 1993, in which some 300 died and about 2,000 were
The horrific complexity of the current conflict in Iraq (referred to as “the situation”) is depicted in The Situation, directed by Philip Haas, largely through the eyes of an American journalist, Anna Moiyneux (played by Connie Nielsen), who sleeps for information with Dan Murphy (played by Damian Lewis), a lower-level American diplomat, and Zaid (Mido
Based on letters written by soldiers at Iwo Jima that were discovered many years later, Letters from Iwo Jima reconstructs the efforts of Japanese soldiers to defend the strategic island of Iwo Jima in 1945. The movie is subtitled and in black and white. When the film begins, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (played by Ken Watanabe)
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JOYEUX NOЁL PORTRAYS WAR AS A FARCE Joyeux Noël, directed by Christian Carion, dramatizes an extraordinary Christmas on the front lines of World War I in 1914. When the film begins, schoolchildren are mouthing war propaganda, reminiscent of the opening scene in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Fastforward to the war in 1914,
A CHRISTIAN NONVIOLENT MESSAGE REACHES THE MOUTH OF THE AMAZON IN END OF THE SPEAR End of the Spear, directed by Jim Hanon, is a docudrama (based on his own 2005 documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor) with spectacular cinematography (mostly of Panamá) and fascinating muscular actors (actually the Embera people of Panamá), though the
MUNICH DEPICTS THE NEVER-ENDING UPWARD SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE In Munich, director Steven Spielberg appears to agree with Saverio Costanzo, whose recent film Private shows that Israelis are losing the fight against the indefatigable Palestinians. When Munich begins, nine Palestinians kidnap and execute eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympiad in 1972 but escape justice. Israel’s