Ajami is a thriller made in Israel centering around Omar, an Israeli Arab, and Malek, a Palestine Arab. Through their hardships, which are intertwined with several other stories from the lives of others living in the Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa, we see what real life is like in Ajami and other neighborhoods like it. Co-directors Scandar Copti (an Israeli Arab) and Yaron Shani (an Israeli Jew) collaborate to do more than just entertain, however, using both story and technique to expose harsh realities about race relations in the area, and subtly suggest ways in which life in neighborhoods like Ajami could be improved for everyone. Copti and Shani make use of cinema verité techniques, narration, character identity and plot structure to achieve their goal successfully.
Before discussing the social and cultural importance of the resulting film, it is key to note the importance of the making of the film. As written by Dissanayake, “The concept of national cinema serves to privilege notions of coherence and unity and to stabilize cultural meanings linked to the perceived uniqueness of a given nation. (879)” In an area such as Israel, where Arabs and Israelis have been in a state of conflict for centuries, any collaboration between an Arab and an Israeli is extraordinary. Shani and Copti worked together to produce Ajami, using both Arabs and Israelis as part of the crew. The result is a film which is a triumph for race relations, both on-screen and off, which may contribute to the unity of two competing sides of a nation-state in a shared sense of national cinema.
Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani make this drama hit so close to home with the use of cinema verité style and techniques. Verité, a style primarily used in documentary filmmaking, aims for realism through a lack of planning and scripting (Aufderheide, 42).
Copti and Shani achieve authenticity through the use of a handheld camera, unscripted scenes, and the employment of first-time actors in Ajami. Very few scenes are filmed with a tripod or even a steadicam harness. This lack of controlled camera allows the viewer to bob, shake, and bounce with the characters. One example of this technique being successful occurs in the beginning of chapter three, during a confrontation between an Israeli Jew and a group of young Israeli Arabs. A fight breaks out, in which the older Israeli Jew is stabbed. What is notable about the scene, however, is not the stabbing, but rather the jerky camera movement in the scene. At several different moments, it appears as if the camera operator is nearly run into by men in the middle of the fight. This imperfection allows the viewer to feel that history is unfolding on screen, not scripted drama. This reinforces the notion of realism which is crucial to the film’s success both as a fictional tale and a representation of a larger social issue.
Copti and Shani also accomplish realism through their cast of real people who have never been in a film. All members of the cast are from the area around Jaffa, lending validity to the issues portrayed on screen. It is impossible to cast people who would know more about life in Ajami than those who have actually lived there. The co-directors only increase the amount of realism on-screen by making several scenes unscripted. Copti and Shani opted to go without a script in several scenes, instead telling the actors what would be happening and filming their natural reactions. This strategy adds subtle shades of authenticity to the film in several scenes. One such example is the scene in which Omar has been out late and returns home to his mother (Nisrin Rihan), who is upset with him. Instead of scripting this scene, the directors talked to Rihan at length before the shoot. Rihan, an Ajami native, has lost family members to gang crime in the past, and it comes through on film. She cries real tears, allowing the viewer to feel her pain, even if it lasts only for a few minor moments of the story. Copti and Shani make every moment count, every moment real.
The use of these techniques gives the film an authentic feel for the viewer. Such a cinematic style fits Kracauer’s term, phenomena overwhelming consciousness, which “call forth excitements and agonies bound to thwart detached observation.” The events unfolding on screen are traumatic and realistic in nature, and the forcing the viewer to feel a connection to what’s being portrayed on screen. The events portrayed in the film are true to life, and by showing them as such, Copti and Shani create a connection between the viewer and real life in Ajami. In this way, real-life issues in Israel are brought to the fore, effectively raising consciousness of the harsh realities of modern-day life in the ghettos of cities like Jaffa and Tel-Aviv.
Copti and Shani also use the carefully-written identities and relationships of the characters to blur the boundaries between different races and religions. Each major race and religion of Israel is represented by at least one character in Ajami, and never do these races or religions stay clear of others. Main character Omar is an Israeli Muslim whose love interest Hadir is an Israeli Christian. Binj is an Israeli Muslim with a Jewish girlfriend. Malek is a Palestinian Muslim, and Dando an Israeli Jew. Especially to a non-native audience, these distinctions are almost impossible to pick up immediately. And even when the boundaries are clear, they’re constantly being pushed.
Interreligious and interracial relationships serve as a source of great conflict. When Binj expresses his desire to move to Tel-Aviv with his Jewish girlfriend, his friends are incensed, challenging his “Arab pride.” Later, the discovery of Omar and Hadir’s secret relationship leads Abu Elias confront Hadir. He calls Omar “not human,” because he is a Muslim and not a Christian, and later sets up a sting on a drug deal in order to get Omar arrested. These tensions unfold in such a way that we may easily see the hatred displayed by each group toward the other.
Copti and Shani create depth in the conflicts, however, by showing a different side to each race. These characters are more than their ethnic and/or religious identities; competing with the loyalty to their own groups and hatred toward others’ are genuinely good qualities in each. When Binj learns of Malek’s mother’s illness, he lets Malek leave his job early and even pays Malek’s way to see his mother. Dando, despite being portrayed as a tough-as-nails, Arab-hating policeman, is also shown as a soft-hearted person through scenes with his family and children. Each group is portrayed as hateful in some scenes, but ultimately good in others. Shani and Copti use this contrast to show that even in the most hateful of relations between groups, cooperation, collaboration, and goodwill are possible, so long as each group takes the time to learn more about the other, outside of racial or ethnic affiliations. Once that characteristic of a person is being looked past, many good things about someone are bound to be discovered.
Copti and Shani also utilize narration. Belton says that sound serves a secondary function to visuals in film, writing, “sound achieves authenticity only as a consequence of its submission to tests imposed upon it by other senses—primarily by sight.” Mary Ann Doane takes a different perspective. She wrote, “While it is true that sound is almost always discussed with reference to the image, it does not necessarily follow that this automatically makes sound subordinate.” The narration of Ajami by Nasri, the younger brother of Omar, explores the relationship between these two claims, serving as subordinate yet transcendent to the visuals on the screen.
One passage, repeated twice in the final two chapters of the film, makes up majority of the narration. The first occurs immediately after Binj overdoses. Nasri’s voice comes up, saying “Close your eyes. Take a deep breath and relax your mind. You feel calm and relaxed.” A smash cut to Omar and Malek being beaten by Israeli police during the drug sting follows. Malek is shot, and Omar runs away. The narration resumes over shots of Omar running from the scene: “Your hands are becoming weightless. Then your feet, then your whole body. On the count of three, you’ll open your eyes and find yourself in a different place.” Omar turns a corner, and the narration resumes: “One. Two. Three.” A cut to Nasri, drawing in his comic book, several days before the sting. “Open your eyes.”
The second occurrence of this narration comes at the end of the film. “Close your eyes” is heard as you see shots of three different dead characters. The narration continues as Omar is once again running from the scene of the sting. This time, when Nasri hits “Three,” the film cuts to black. Nasri says, “Open your eyes,” and the credits roll.
This narration, if taken through Belton’s perspective, serves a losing function in the film. It occurs at times of great tragedy and trauma in the narrative, the first during a scuffle in which Malek ultimately is killed, the second after three characters are already dead. Shani and Copti use the narration in this sense to juxtapose the hope and idealism of Nasri’s mantra with the grim reality on the screen. In this way, the narration becomes subordinate to the image because it simply does not fit; there’s nothing relaxing about what’s happening on screen. Escape, while ideal, is unrealistic. There’s no escaping life. The narration then becomes unbelievable and inauthentic. In this way, Copti and Shani seem to suggest that hopeful rhetoric is not enough to achieve social change, but that actions must be included with those words.
Copti and Shani also use the narration to serve a transcendent purpose, however. Taken from Doane’s perspective, the narration can serve a function equal to that of the visual, or perhaps even above the visual. The relaxing quality of the narration and the jarring images contradict each other, and the directors use this contradiction to create in the narration a call to action. The viewer is asked to close their eyes, escape all the cruelty of the real world, and re-emerge in a new, relaxed world. The viewer is subtly asked to reconsider the boundaries between Arab and Israeli; Christian, Muslim and Jew. “Open your eyes” serves as more than a mere physical command; it is a plea to look at the world in a different way. In this way, the narration supersedes the actual images on the screen, suggesting an alternative—and better—version of reality, imagined and realized in some ways by the co-directors, Copti and Shani. The combination of these two uses of narration suggests that in order for social change to occur, Israelis need to engage in action to achieve change, but also must do so through a new set of eyes, one of equality and tolerance.
Copti and Shani not only suggest a new paradigm through narration, however. Perhaps the strongest tool in their claim is their unconventional plot structure. The film is divided into five chapters. Each chapter begins with a different character, giving different points of view. Each chapter ends in such a way so as not to reveal all the details of the story, forcing the viewer to make assumptions about what happens at the end of the story. After chapter two, the viewer assumes Binj is a junkie and Dando is a murderous drug dealer. Chapter three negates that assumption, showing Binj as a selfless friend and Dando as not only a policeman, but a warm family man in the midst of a personal tragedy. It is not until the end until we see that a misunderstanding was responsible for the deaths of three people—the watch Malek had found made Dando believe he was responsible for his brother’s murder. The deaths of the three were not the act of a drug dealer, a murder, a policeman, or an immigrant. The first shot is fired by Nasri, a boy no older than thirteen. Everything that has happened is the result of a misunderstanding. Taking the time to do something as simple as ask about the watch would have saved three lives, including the lives of a child and a teenager. As a viewer, this revelation is shocking, turning the whole story, and your assumption about the cause of the incident, completely on its head.
Copti and Shani use the structure to do more than simply surprise the viewer; they suggest a new approach to race relations in Israel. Each chapter gives the viewer the surface details of the story, leading into the fifth chapter, which finally reveals all the information needed for full understanding of the story. Copti and Shani’s plot structure challenges the different social groups of Israel to avoid preconceived notions. Doing so can result in completely inaccurate stances on both issues and people, or even death, as in Dando’s case. All information available should be collected before assumptions are made. As reflected by the characters in the story, people should learn more each other before they judge. A person you may judge at first to be wrong and against you may be quite different. And as Copti and Shani would likely say, getting past your first impressions and learning more about people unlike you may be the key to a peaceful future.
Ajami is a fast-paced, tense thriller, but it’s also more than that. It’s an exploration of relations between different cultural groups in Israel, ultimately culminating in Copti and Shani’s vision for a better future, in which people learn to judge others by who they are, not what they are. The production of the film alone stands as a cultural achievement, being a collaboration between Israeli Jews and Arabs. Copti and Shani also accomplish a great deal on-screen, using cinema verité style and techniques to make the problems on film as authentic as real life. The carefully-written characters and relationships blur the lines dividing races and religions, and suggest there is more to a person than their ethnicity or religion. The use of narration establishes the fact that there is no escape from reality, but also encourages action and a new outlook on life on the part of the viewer. And lastly, the plot is structured in such a way so as to encourage viewers to look beyond initial assumptions, ever striving to get all the necessary facts to make a judgment about someone. Arabs and Jews have been at conflict with each other for a long portion of our history, and things haven’t gotten much better lately. Through the use of these techniques, however, the directors use Ajami as a suggestion that with a paradigm shift, change, and ultimately peace, is still possible in Israel.
Works Cited
Aufderheide, P. (2007). Documentary film: a very short introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Belton, J. (1985). Technology and aesthetics of film sound. Film Theory and Criticism (pp.
332-333). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Dissanayake, W. (2000). Issues in world cinema. Film Theory and Criticism (pp. 879). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Doane, M.A. (1980). The voice in the cinema: the articulation of body and space. Film Theory and Criticism (pp. 321-322). New York, NY: Oxford University Press
Kracauer, S. (1960). The establishment of physical existence. Film Theory and Criticism (pp. 270-271). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
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