A lot of films have been done about the politics and issues regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. These films always tend to focus on the conflict itself, from one side or the other, and sometimes (and rarely) both. However, none of them have ever taken the unique and intriguing twist on the conflict like Ziad Doueiri does in The Attack. Doueiri suffuses his film with heart, mystery, and leaves his character caught in headlights as he tells his story in an original new way.
Amin Jaafari (Ali Suliman) is a renowned and award-winning Arab surgeon living in Tel Aviv, Israel. On the day of an attack that’s claimed to have been set up by a suicide bomber, Amin helps take care of the injured, completely unaware that his wife Siham (Reymond Amsalem) was also killed in the bombing. A couple of days later—and still believing that his wife is away visiting her grandfather—Amin is called into the hospital to identify Siham’s body. The police arrest Amin to question him about his wife's involvement in the attack (they identify her as the suicide bomber).
Throughout the interrogation and long after, he is in denial that his wife could have committed such an act. An act he didn't know she’d been a part of. After being released from jail, Amin searches for answers and discovers things he doesn't expect to find that change his outlook on everything he thought he knew.
Based on the novel by Yasmina Khadra, director Ziad Doueiri takes an intricately weaved story and places us right in the heart of it. The plot is thought provoking and the drama high as we experience everything from Amin’s point of view. We’re never given anyone else’s perspective, even as Amin seeks to understand his wife’s. Doueiri is brave enough to reinvent an often times ignored political conflict and shape it into something new and original.
The acting in this film is really well done. Credit should be given especially to Ali Suliman who carries the film and brings every emotion his character is feeling through his body language and certain facial tics. Throughout the course of the film, you feel sorry for him, grieve with him, and get frustrated, angry, and defensive along with him. This film is very much a journey through Amin’s eyes, and Suliman makes sure to make you aware of that fact during the entire movie.
The setting focuses on Tel Aviv in the first half and the city of Nablus in the second half. And Doueiri, without making it blatantly obvious, easily shows us the differences between the two cities. Doueiri has given us a very convincing mystery that is less about the overall political conflict and more about the personal affect it has on the main character. The film is poignant and easily one of the best films to come from the region in recent memory.
The Attack is very much a personal journey, set right in the middle of the conflict taking place as we speak. We see Amin torn between two worlds and seeking to understand why his wife did what she did and why she didn’t tell him anything about it. It’s a unique take on an issue that has garnered many films in the past. Doueiri gives the film a lot of thought and detail and should be commended for deciding to take a different approach in storytelling.
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