June 23, 2006
This Body is a Prison
An Interview With Film-maker Dylan Bergeson
View This Body is a Prison for free here.
The world is complex; this is what makes art possible, not to mention life itself, and it's why education never ends. But an institution like the State or the military can't afford to acknowledge this; its actions, like all acts of violence, must be based on brutal, simple premises. Such is the reality of war, and such is the reality of Occupation, which is war institutionalized. Thankfully, we also have things like This Body is a Prison to educate us beyond the violence.
Dylan Bergeson's debut documentary This Body is a Prison, shot on video over four months, captures the reality of Palestinians' lives under Israeli occupation. In one short hour, it manages to convey existence in a world where complexity is denied by violence, where everyday life is a struggle, and yet, through that struggle, art and education persist.
Bergeson, a recent graduate of Fairhaven College in Bellingham, WA, completed the film as a senior project. After the premiere of the film in May, he was kind enough to respond to some questions for Lucid Screening. His original ambition was to present the film to his community, but what he has achieved deserves a much larger audience. It is available on-line, but will hopefully be available in other venues in the future.
In its strongest moments, This Body is a Prison, like the best documentaries, educates us so sublimely it approaches the realm of art. James Langley's Iraq in Fragments is nearly this way from start to finish; This Body is a Prison is not as technically impressive or as seamlessly woven together, but it hints that a work on this level may be in Bergeson's future. It is an achievement for any filmmaker to make a film as powerful as Bergeson has, let alone a first-time filmmaker. The film manages to make a statement, but is not overly pedantic; it captures a situation's complexity but is far from myopic.
Dylan's comments express that this was his hope in making the picture.
"Everything having to do with Palestine and Israel is so polarized that there is not a great deal of communication and understanding between people who are ardently pro-Israel or pro-Palestine. Almost every documentary I've seen about the conflict is clearly advancing some political agenda. I don't think it's possible to erase politics from any story about Palestine because life there is inherently politicized. But I thought it would greatly benefit my community to present a documentary that was a primarily human look at life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in which politics are only discussed to the extent that they set up a context for the humanistic stories being told."
To portray the human side of the Occupation, Bergeson chose to explore the particularly human realm of the mind by utilizing the perspective of psychology. Beregson explains how he came to frame his film this way.
"As far as this particular project goes, I took a lot of inspiration from organizations that I studied or did interviews with while I was in the West Bank. I decided to focus on the psychological impacts of occupation after speaking with volunteers at the Gaza Community Mental Health Center. [Kahlil, the] director of the Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture in Ramallah and a professor of psychology at Bir Zeit University who I interviewed really influenced the way I tried to frame the situation in Palestine. I happened upon a great publication called the Palestine-Israel Journal that did an issue titled "Two Traumatized Societies" in a free box in the Ramallah International Solidarity Movement [ISM] flat. The journal had numerous articles by experts in psychology form around the world, each applying different models and modes of thinking about the psychology of trauma to the Palestinian situation."
This concern with humanity is why This Body is a Prison practically screams for a double-bill with an earlier film on virtually the same subject: Gaza Strip [2002], James Langley's first feature. Langley's film is sustained by interviews with Palestinian children. Through their laughter and tears, he conveys the emotional and psychological pain of growing up under Occupation.
Unfortunately, Bergeson's lack of a strong grasp on Arabic prevented him from him speaking with Palestinian children. Even so, This Body is a Prison elaborates upon the content of Langley's work. The film's narrative relies on a lengthy discussion with Khalil, mentioned above, as well as discussions with female Palestinian students, whereas Langley's subjects were mostly teenage males, mostly out of school. Each film thus enhances the other.
Interviews are not all that drive Bergeson's film, however. An especially memorable — and severely haunting — moment in This Body is a Prison takes place during the Israeli invasion of the Balata refugee camp in February 2006. A Palestinian ambulance, full of wounded bystanders, is prevented from leaving the scene by a motionless Israeli armored vehicle. Standing on the side of a narrow street, boxed in by steep walls, Bergeson's camera quickly pans back and forth from the ambulance to a constant stream of debris tossed onto an Israeli vehicle by an unseen person (or persons) in a balcony above. Exasperated Palestinian medics rush down the street, screaming for those above to stop throwing things, lest the Israelis be provoked.
Were this scene viewed on its own, the gesture of anger represented by the futile barrage of trash would remain a mystery, much like those in the balcony who remain unseen. Within the context of This Body is a Prison, however, the scene demonstrates the tensions wrought by the Occupation, and the military invasions that violently deny the complexities of this tension. The screaming, the sounds of gunshots, alarms and sirens, put everything at a fever pitch — the tension is palpable. But bordered with the earnest stillness of Bergeson's interviews, we immediately understand why both the trash continues to crash down from above, and why the medics demand that it not.
We also understand how the Occupation frames each conflict at work along the narrow street. Bergeson explains that this was one of his objectives.
"Some people cannot try to understand the Palestinian situation because they are caught up in the mindset that supporting Palestine means being against Israel. Politics aside, I think it is important to remember that no human life is worth the more than another because of nationality or any other reason. Yet, how often do we hear about Palestinian security? This is a war between one of the largest armies in the world and a civilian population. The single most important message that I can put out is that being pro-Palestinian is the same thing as being pro-Israeli. There cannot be peace and security for one and not the other. The only way peace and security will be achieved for either is through justice, and that means recognizing the difference in power between Israel and Palestine. The first step toward a lasting peace will be Israel ending the occupation and withdrawing entirely to the 1967 border. Palestinians won't settle for a peace that is unjust, and shouldn't be expected to. Attacks against Israel are entirely a response to it maintaining a violent military presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This violence will cease when the occupation does. If people in this country care about supporting Israel they must care equally about Palestinians and pressure our government to end support of the one thing that makes peace impossible, the occupation."
The need for care comes across clearly within This Body is a Prison. For audience-members hundreds of miles away from where the events occur, the film manages to be powerfully affecting. Beregson explains the importance of reaching this audience due to the global implications of the film's subject.
"[Palestine] is a tiny patch of land, but many people around the world feel they have a huge stake in what happens there. Israel receives billions of dollars in direct military aid and other moneys from the United States, so every tax paying citizen bears direct responsibility for what Israel does with those resources. It is vitally important, therefore, that we educate ourselves about what our money is supporting. If we continue to sponsor the occupation with our tax dollars, we at least ought to be informed about it. Unfortunately it is up to individuals in this country to educate our own communities, because our media does an outstandingly awful job in reporting this issue. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the Media Education Foundation, and other media awareness projects have produced a wealth of data to demonstrate this."
The film, at last, does its own small part towards resolving the conflicts it depicts. The very process of making his film helped Bergeson resolve his own feelings regarding his experiences.
"Emotionally, I was very lucky to have one project that tied together my trip to Palestine, when I was shooting the footage, and my return to the states, when I began editing that footage. So many activists have serious issues with depression when they leave Palestine. They have to come to terms with their privilege to be able to remove themselves from that situation, while all along they've been making close friends who can't even visit their relatives in Jordan or Jerusalem. Inevitably, many people start questioning what they accomplished by going to Palestine, and they feel useless. I was able to record many of my experiences and process them into a digestible form that I could show to other people. Because of this, I feel that my work was tangible, positive, and worthwhile."
Simply through the virtue of its content, This Body is a Prison demands a question similar to the one Bergeson wrestled with in making it: What is our relationship and responsibility towards the conflicts it depicts? For someone relatively unfamiliar with issues in the Middle East — as I am — the film at the very least prompts further inquiry into the issue. This is the most any media can hope to accomplish; because the world is large and complex, it demands not only education, but also our engagement.
