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MillimeterFade to Black:
Hany Abu-Assad, Director
Dec 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Darroch Greer
“If I could go back I would not do that!” says Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad about his decision to shoot his critically acclaimed film, Paradise Now, in Nablus, Palestine — and in 35mm. “With 35 you went immediately to a big crew. You went to a place with a war. Then you are immediately responsible for the lives of 70 men. And you are less mobile. You can't move very easily — all the [30] light trucks. You have to light 35mm! With 35 scope you have to light double, even!”
Paradise Now is the story of two Palestinian men in the tumult of what might be the last 48 hours of their lives. It has the breathtaking immediacy of news from the front — a Battle of Algiers for our time — yet it is shot in the classic language of a thriller from the West. The project was originally to be shot in video. “We wanted to have a realistic approach,” says Abu-Assad, “but then I asked myself, ‘Why is the camera shaking and the light bad, and the images like video? Why this agreement?’ I discovered that it's just because of the technique — because of the current agreement between audience and medium, the home video effect. But it's far from what we, in reality, see. Because in reality [our eyes] are closer to [seeing in] 35mm, to the widescreen. Then I thought, this agreement is just for now, but 20 years from now we will have a different agreement. … I didn't want to make a film that just looks for now realistic, but [one that would also look realistic] 20 years from now.”
Abu-Assad decided to shoot Paradise Now in Nablus in 2004, just as it was turning into the epicenter of the Israeli/Palestinian war. Because the film was a Dutch/German/Israeli/French production, with an equally diverse, though mostly Palestinian, crew, everyone knew they had their work cut out for them. They had to appease the Israeli army as well as several local Palestinian factions. They made contingency plans, but it was never enough. They brought both a 535 B Arriflex and a 35mm Aaton (with Ultra Prime and Angenieux lenses set from 16-250mm), knowing there would be no chance for repairs if something happened.
“I don't remember if the camera broke,” says Abu-Assad. “It was so insignificant compared to what happened every day — curfews, tanks, missile attacks, shootings, kidnapping one of your crew members, defending your project in a place where they think you are against them. All these things were so much more intense. Also, you want to direct a movie. You want to stay in focus with actors and with the camera and with the lights. These things took a lot of energy. You don't remember, for example, if the camera broke down. It wasn't a big problem!”
Indeed. Abu-Assad had to enlist the help of Yasser Arafat to win the release of his kidnapped location manager. After Israeli missiles attacked a nearby car and gunmen ordered them to leave, six of his crew quit. The entire crew finally had to leave Nablus early and rebuild some sets in Nazareth to finish filming. He thinks Nablus added something valuable to the film and to the actors' performances, but if he had the chance to do it over again, he would not. It was too taxing.
On top of all of this were the production worries of a film shot in a real war zone. Not a day went by without a disruption. What would normally have been a 25-day shoot took 42. Even then they had to drop 10 scenes. They left 10 more on the cutting room floor as they tried to piece together the thriller coherently.
“Because we were shooting in Nablus, we didn't show dailies. Can you imagine? Until the end of the movie I wasn't able to see dailies. We just crossed our fingers. Once every two weeks [we sent film to Germany for processing], but then we get the report three weeks late after shooting, like ‘there is no focus problem.’ But you don't know how the characters do, how they look on the screen. You don't know about the sound. You don't know!”
In the end, the film came out as Abu-Assad had wanted. “I imagined it like this: a classical language [with] almost all the Western thriller [techniques]. But also it looks realistic and less artificial — because, in general, thrillers have something artificial. There is no suspense in real life. But [in creating] the suspense of real life, the thriller looks very authentic.”
