Little Red Balloons
Whenever I see Zionuts commemorating the bottle rockets that have fallen on Israel since the so-called “disengagement” from Gaza, it reminds me of a certain moment in the history of cinema. Well actually two moments, one inspired by the other.
If you’re like me and you grew up with semi-hippie parents who wanted to expose their children to foreign film at an early age, you have probably seen the wonderful little rose of a movie called The Red Balloon. In it, a french boy– the son of director Albert Lamorisse– finds a curiously sentient red balloon which, according to the flexible logic permitted in French abstract film, proceeds to make friends with the boy. They wander the grim alleyways of post-WWII Paris, the red balloon leading the way, a stark note of color and happiness against the urban decay. The film wears on and the balloon gets more and more anthropomorphic until we start to care about it as if it were the most innocent and cheery of children. When, inexplicably, the balloon gets popped by an unfeeling boy mob, we can only weep. The film is an oh so subtle commentary on sad realities and senseless cruelties that always seem to interrupt children’s dreams. “Subtle”, of course, is a word too nuanced, too measured for Zionuts to understand, since they believe in a doctrine of massive and disproportional force. In film criticism too!
Director Elia Suleiman, a big old french cinephile, brought back the Red Balloon in his masterpiece Divine Intervention, a film that, to me, produces more powerful metaphors for the absurdity of occupation that any more explicit documentary ever could. An instance in which fiction bothers us even more than non-fiction. In Suleiman’s treatment, the sentient, anthropomorphic balloon now bears the face of deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. What is the balloon thinking? What does it want? It heads straight for the Dome of the Rock, over the heads of soldiers and silly checkpoints and man-made borders, and hovers there, smiling.
Nowadays, this wonderful, multivalent symbol has been cheaply reduced to the level of an Israeli PR campaign that publicizes the rockets that have fallen on Southern Israel. There would not be many balloons to inflate if the victims of such bottle rockets were to be counted, which is why they have to count the rockets themselves. See here a picture of one such Qassem rocket count at the Israeli mission to the UN. Of course, it looks more like an art installation by Christo, the French-Bulgarian landscape artist who famously draped museums and trees. This is just another instance of theft that the Israeli state has perpetrated, this time intellectual.
And now for something totally unrelated… you know who is obsessed with, and still totally not over draping? Rami Kashou, the finalist of last year’s Project Runway! He said he’s passionate about draping. I have a picture taken with him for all those of who are jealous.
To end this post, I would like to inaugurate a world-wide contest for suggestions on just what symbol best represents the current suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. A piñata? A pest extermination? I’m all ears.
“”There would not be many balloons to inflate if the victims of such bottle rockets were to be counted, which is why they have to count the rockets themselves.”"
Except that everyone within the range of the rockets becomes a victim of them, whether killed or not, due to the sheer uncertainty they inspire, and how impossible they make normal life.
The number of people they kill is not particularly important.
Hooray! A connecting of dots in film! I love that you ended with Rami Kashou and your picture, lol.
In response to Joe,
I wish the israeli war and publicity machine would produce some pictures of dead, maimed or phosphorous burned victims of Hamas rockets hitting the southern regions Israel. That’s because there are no such gruesome victims, or at least not 900 of them. Its merely inconvenient to go into prepared, government sponsored shelters to play table tennis when the sirens sound. These safe rooms are the price you pay to live on stolen land.
Israel is very good at building big walls to keep legitimate people out, under the pretense of security,and moving their own people into areas which doesn’t belong to them–I suggest they move their people out of the way just about 20 to 30 miles would get them out of harms way of the Harming Fireworks and establish a demilitarized zone on their territory for a change.
Joe,
You really think death counts are irrelevant?
Even if they were, and even if the ITF were justified in its initial incursions, how the fuck can you justify the unprovoked attack on a UN school, the shooting of an aid worker, or the abandonment of children? Or the use of white phosphorus, for that matter?
Get a fucking clue.
Thanks Emily
I just saw him the other day at a club in silver lake, still as dashing as ever
It’s unfortunate, someone broke a beer bottle on his face a while back, but he has recovered nicely
Thanks Emily
I just saw him the other day at a club in silver lake, still as dashing as ever
It’s unfortunate, someone broke a beer bottle on his face a while back, but he has recovered nicely
Thanks Emily
I just saw him the other day at a club in silver lake, still as dashing as ever
It’s unfortunate, someone broke a beer bottle on his face a while back, but he has recovered nicely
Thanks Emily
I just saw him the other day at a club in silver lake, still as dashing as ever
It’s unfortunate, someone broke a beer bottle on his face a while back, but he has recovered nicely
Thanks Emily
I just saw him the other day at a club in silver lake, still as dashing as ever
It’s unfortunate, someone broke a beer bottle on his face a while back, but he has recovered nicely
Thanks Emily
I just saw him the other day at a club in silver lake, still as dashing as ever
It’s unfortunate, someone broke a beer bottle on his face a while back, but he has recovered nicely
Thanks Emily
I just saw him the other day at a club in silver lake, still as dashing as ever
It’s unfortunate, someone broke a beer bottle on his face a while back, but he has recovered nicely
Thanks Emily
I just saw him the other day at a club in silver lake, still as dashing as ever
It’s unfortunate, someone broke a beer bottle on his face a while back, but he has recovered nicely
The symbol would need to be both as blunt as a pinata and yet represent a much more convoluted back story – but somehow I am not feeling too inspired. I’ll give it some thought.
And still wondering here…. who could be our mutual friend?
Sama on this blog? or maybe he just said he knew you
Sama on this blog? or maybe he just said he knew you
Sama on this blog? or maybe he just said he knew you
Sama on this blog? or maybe he just said he knew you
Sama on this blog? or maybe he just said he knew you
Sama on this blog? or maybe he just said he knew you
Sama on this blog? or maybe he just said he knew you
Sama on this blog? or maybe he just said he knew you
Things keep developing:
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) denied Monday a report that an errant mortar shell fired by its troops caused the casualties at a UN school in Gaza Strip.
…
“We are still sticking by our official position that according to our initial inquiry, the whole thing started when terrorists fired mortar shells from the school compound,” said David.
[...and regarding the UN aid worker:]
Yet David denied the accusation, saying that “the initial inquiry indicates that it was not IDF fire that killed him,” which mirrors an allegation that he was killed by Hamas snipers targeting the aid workers.
It’s not yet settled who’s actually responsible. I am curious, though, if it turns out that the aid worker was definitely shot by Palestinian snipers, would the incident suddenly be uninteresting to Kabobfest?
A preliminary investigation into the fatal bombing by Israeli forces of a United Nations school in Gaza has found that the Israeli troops had missed their targets by 30 metres.
…
According to the Haaretz newspaper, the investigation found that the army’s location system had indicated militants had launched a Qassam rocket into Israel from within a lot adjacent to the courtyard of the UN building.
…
The troops had resorted to using mortars after a technical malfunction precluded the use of a smart missile to take out the rocket launchers.
mack re rami– ouch!!