Divine Intervention 2003

Divine Intervention unfolds as a mosaic of interconnected scenes that quietly illuminate life under military occupation, moving between the cities of Nazareth and Ramallah. The story orbits around E.S., who lives in Nazareth, and his father, who remains in Ramallah. The film opens by dwelling in Ramallah, where the daily rhythm of life is pierced by conflict: neighborly disputes, the steady presence of Israeli police, and the steady encroachment and seizure of Palestinian spaces by settlers. The atmosphere is deliberately observational, with characters able to observe one another and the world around them while their freedom to act is constrained by the occupying force. The tone remains restrained and composed, letting the images carry weight in lieu of dialogue.

• In Nazareth, a strange, stark image frames the opening: Santa Claus flees from children as gifts spill from his basket, wounded and leaning against the crumbling ruin of a Franciscan chapel perched atop Mount Fear. The scene casts a hushed, almost mythic glow over a city where joy and danger coexist in the margins.

• Back in Ramallah, E.S.’s Father drives through familiar streets and mutters curses at recognizable faces, his voice a tether to memories and grievances that color every turn of the wheel.

• Neighbors appear in quick, intimate vignettes—bickering over small, everyday concerns that nonetheless reveal larger frictions and tensions simmering beneath surface civility.

• A Palestinian couple meets in a car at the border checkpoint between Ramallah and Nazareth, their private moment echoing the film’s larger theme of restricted movement and hidden connection.

• More neighborly friction follows—slice-of-life exchanges that underline the fragility of coexistence under occupation.

• A tourist seeking directions from an Israeli policeman becomes a chilling, cruel vignette: the officer cannot help; instead, he brings out a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner from the back of his van, and the Palestinian prisoner offers three different routes. The moment exposes how ordinary interactions can be entangled with control and humiliation.

• The couple returns to the car, where a provocative act unfolds: the man (E.S.) inflates a red balloon bearing Yasser Arafat’s face and releases it near a checkpoint. An Israeli soldier moves to shoot it, but a fellow soldier halts him. In the ensuing distraction, the couple manages to slip through the checkpoint, and the balloon’s journey travels over Jerusalem, finally resting against the Dome of the Rock.

• Night drapes the couple’s car journeys once more, keeping their meetings in shadow and distance.

• A striking, surreal sequence erupts the next morning: five Israeli men perform a choreographed, dance-like drill with live weapons, firing at targets painted to resemble a Palestinian woman under the direction of a choreographer-officer. When one target fails to fall, a real Palestinian woman—dressed like the targets—emerges. The officer orders the shooting to continue, but the woman lifts the bullets from the air, gathers them into a radiant crown of thorns, and then disperses them. She uses crescent-shaped stars and rocks to strike down all but the officer. A helicopter arrives to reinforce the troops, yet the woman effortlessly destroys it by hurling a shield bearing the form of Palestine. The choreographer watches, powerless, as the miraculous figure disappears.

• The film closes on a domestic note: E.S. and his mother share a quiet moment, watching their dinner simmer and steam inside a pressure cooker, a simple, intimate ritual lingering after so much upheaval.

Divine Intervention balances stark realism with glimpses of the extraordinary, weaving together scenes of ordinary life—driving, arguing, watching, waiting—with moments that hover between myth and allegory. The result is a meditation on endurance and resistance, where voice is scarce and sight, gesture, and symbol carry the weight of meaning. The border, the checkpoints, and the shared spaces of Nazareth and Ramallah become stages for a quiet, persistent insistence on human presence despite the constraints of occupation.