Divine Intervention

The film opens by focusing on life in Ramallah, centering on E.S.'s father and the neighbors who swirl around him. We see disputes, the presence of Israeli police at the edges, and items seemingly seized by settlers, painting a world oppressed by occupation. The atmosphere is observational, with small tensions building among residents as they go about their day.

The Father curses familiar faces as he drives through Ramallah's streets, an act that reveals a heavier weariness under occupation. The mundane drive becomes a canvas for memory, frustration, and the politics of daily life. The scene underscores how routine moments are tinted by conflict.

A sequence of petty disputes among neighbors unfolds, highlighting the fragility of community under stress. The bickering serves as a quiet counterpoint to the larger geopolitical forces at play. Behind each quarrel you sense the undercurrent of fear, suspicion, and survival.

Suddenly, E.S.'s father becomes ill and is admitted to a hospital in Ramallah, shifting the focus toward his son’s responsibility. The family anxiously navigates the medical system while under the gaze of checkpoints and power structures. This illness marks a pivot toward the second part of the film and E.S.'s journeys between Nazareth and Ramallah.

With his father ill, E.S. must travel between Nazareth and Ramallah, crossing the border as he moves between home and hospital. The border checkpoint becomes a liminal space where movement is negotiated and watched. The act of crossing foregrounds the political reality that structures ordinary visits.

A Palestinian couple encounters each other at the border checkpoint, beginning a clandestine pattern of meetings that thread through the film. Their car conversations unfold under the watchful eyes of guards and cameras, illustrating the texture of daily life under occupation. The meetings weave romance into a landscape shaped by restriction.

A tourist asks an Israeli policeman for directions, and the officer sifts through his van to produce a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner from the back. The prisoner offers three possible routes, offering a dark moment of how authority and spectacle intersect. The scene exposes the surreal, coercive logic that governs mobility.

The couple is in the car again when the man inflates a red balloon bearing Yasser Arafat's face and releases it toward the checkpoint. A soldier nearly shoots it, but a comrade intervenes, allowing the couple to slip through. The balloon drifts across Jerusalem and settles near the Dome of the Rock, turning a small act into a symbol-laden moment.

Later that night, the couple shares a quiet car ride, continuing their furtive exchanges away from the public gaze. The intimate moment sits against the backdrop of occupation, suggesting both tenderness and danger in their relationship. The checkpoint remains a constant presence in their lives.

The next morning, five Israeli men rehearse an elaborate, dance-like firing drill directed by a choreographer-officer. When a real Palestinian woman wearing a target's guise appears, the drill escalates into violence as bullets gather and form a crown of thorns. She rises, uses symbols of Palestine to strike back, and defeats all but the officer, challenging the illusion of control.

In a surreal turn, the woman demonstrates extraordinary power, disarming the bullets midflight and causing them to fall. She destroys a hovering helicopter with a shield bearing the image of Palestine, as the choreographer looks on with helpless awe. The sequence blends mythic resistance with the film's stark critique of violence.

The film closes with E.S. and his mother watching their dinner cook in a pressure cooker, a stark domestic image that contrasts with the earlier chaos. The quiet moment hints at endurance and the persistence of ordinary life beneath occupation. It leaves the viewer with a meditation on memory, resilience, and the cost of surveillance.