Movie: The Voice of Hind Rajab
Running Time: 1:29
Nominated for: Best International Feature
How I watched: Landmark Cinemas
When it had me: A six year old needs help!
When it lost me: It didn't
What systems does it challenge: Genocide, Extremist Zionism
I left the theatre grappling with the cruelty of the moment. How are we as humans so unforgivably cruel? How can the government of Israel all agree that it is worth it to use a tank to kill a six year old girl who loves the beach? How can the American right stand by and cheer while a five year old in a bunny hat is abducted, transported and detained for being from another area on a map? How can allegiance to one group, one ideal, one fantasy, fill you with enough hate to want children to suffer? How did Nazis round up children and send them to be shot, gassed, starved, stacked like cord wood? How did border patrol steal babies from their parents, lock them up and then essentially auction them off? How do pedophiles and their traffickers even exist?
sigh.
I'm having a REALLY hard time with all of this.
This movie was interesting because it felt like a documentary. It uses the actual audio files of the child, Hind, as she called for help while being attacked by the Israeli army. Actors are reenacting the real life call center workers who talked to her and tried to coordinate her rescue. Whether it is a doc with dramatizations or a drama with documentary aspects, it is a powerful choice to blur these lines.
The story is gut wrenching but I didn't feel like they were trying to make it sad for me. They didn't have to. They only have to tell it exactly as it happened. I'm glad they understood that.
This was a hard one that I assume most people will want to skip but I think sitting with this child's story for 89 minutes will help me to remember the very real lives that are lost when nations and ideologies become more centered than they should be.
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