Timely release
16 - 22 February 2006
Issue No. 782
Culture
Al-Ahram Weekly
The 56th Berlin International Film Festival taking place these days in
the German capital witnessed the screening of the Danish film 1:1 (En Til
En or One to One) directed by Annette K Olesen in the panorama section.
The film was produced before the caricature controversy but its screening,
while expressions of frustration over the issue still make press material,
is significant. As 1:1 deals with the relationship between the Danish
people and Arab Muslim immigrants and refugees in Denmark, it has become
one of the festival's major cultural and political events, with its
news-making headlines on the front pages of German and international
newspapers.
Produced by the production company of Lars Von Trier, considered one of
the few genius filmmakers in the history of cinema, this is the third
feature film written and directed by Olesen, who has quickly shot to fame
as one of the most promising young filmmakers in Denmark in the past five
years. Her first feature film Smªulykker (Minor Mishaps, 2002) won the
Blue Angel award in the Berlin festival's official competition. Her second
was Forbrydelser (In Your Hands, 2004).
The main cast of 1:1 consists of Mohamed-Ali Bakier and Mohamed Samhi,
both acting for the first time, besides stage actor Subhi Hassan, Joy K
Petersen, Anette St÷velbõk, Helle Hertz, Jonas Busekist and Brian Lentz.
The opening credits show housing blocks built to shelter the poor on
the peripheries of the Danish capital Copenhagen in the 1940s. In one such
neighbourhood the events of the film unfold. The young Palestinian man
Shadi (Bakier) and the young Danish girl Mie (Petersen) live a
Romeo-and-Juliet-like love story which creates some friction between their
families. The Palestinian family consists of a taxi driver father, a
mother, Shadi, his brother Tareq (Hassan) and a sister. The Danish family
consists of a social worker mother S÷s, 16-year-old Mie and her
19-year-old brother Per (Busekist). Both Shadi and Tareq, who dreams of
becoming a professional boxer and winning the Danish championship, train
in a gym run by Mo (Samhi). The gym's security guard Ole (Lentz) is
strongly built but has a child-like innocence. His favourite hobbies are
spending time with his pet German Shepherd Congo, picking up policemen
conversations on his car radio and volunteering to assist them as he seeks
to help the victory of good over evil.
Late at night in one of the empty streets of the neighbourhood, Ole
finds Per unconscious, with a wound in his head and blood flowing from it.
In a deep coma he remains in the intensive care of a hospital for the rest
of the events. Coincidentally on the same night Shadi finds his older
brother Tareq, who was previously convicted for assault, cleaning his
bloodstained clothes in the bathroom. Tareq refuses to explain the
situation to Shadi, who later learns about Mie's brother Per, and suspects
his own brother. The police also suspect the foreign immigrants of being
behind the incident. Similarly, one of Per's friends tells Mie to ask
Shadi about what happened. At first Mie is surprised but eventually she
also suspects Shadi when he is not beside her during the ordeal. The
mother S÷s starts to feel guilty for moving with her children into the
neighbourhood of immigrants.
Ole overhears a conversation between Tareq and Shadi in the gym about
Per's incident and reports it to the police, which makes Tareq officially
wanted by the authorities. Shadi finally receives a negative answer from
Tareq, but he insists that his brother turns himself in since he is
innocent. At the police station they find out that the real culprits -- a
gang of robbers -- have been arrested, with Per's cell phone and wallet
found on them. In the meantime, Per's friend had gathered a group of
hoodlums and decided to teach Shadi a lesson. Ignorant of the latest
developments of the case, they beat Shadi up.
The film's position is clearly opposed to racism and discrimination
against Arab Muslims who are represented in the film through the family of
Palestinian refugees who lost their homeland, but still retain their human
qualities -- neither devils nor angels but people who strive to live
honorably. They are poor, their houses and clothes are modest but tidy,
and they have their values that are rooted in their culture. The
Palestinian mother could be a mother in any place and time, while Arab
Muslim girls seem like any others in Arab societies -- some are veiled,
others are not.
The mother is against her sons having relationships with Danish girls
and introduces her eldest boy Tareq to an Arab girl, hoping they get
married. In turn Shadi avoids introducing Mie to his mother when they run
into each other by chance. Similarly, Mie's grandmother rejects her
involvement with an Arab Muslim. Yet on the other hand Mie's mother does
not object to Mie's relationship with Shadi, and she defends it in her
conversations with the grandmother. The grandmother and Per's friends,
however, are not presented in a flat stereotype for the racist in Western
societies. Like all natives of any place they consider immigrants as
outsiders, particularly those who do not assimilate into their country's
society. Unlike Shakespeare's Capulets and Montagues, both families are
also plagued by poverty and live on the margins of society, trying to come
to terms with the contradictions pervading the world in the aftermath of
the events of 11 September 2001.
The film's positive end shows both Shadi and Per recovered, which
optimistically assumes that humanity will get out of the dark ages once
more. The film has two ends: one dramatic and the other intellectual,
reinforced by Olsen's change of style at the finale.
Even though the film was produced before the caricature controversy,
its inclusion was a correct move from the Berlin festival's administration
under its president Dieter Kossilick, which favours cultural diversity and
dialogue between civilisations.
1:1 represents the Danish people who like all people of the world love
peace and seek to communicate with each other. With this film and the
popular demonstrations against the caricature, the Danes extend their
hands to Arabs and Muslims. Why should we turn them away simply because
one imbecile drew a caricature and another published it? The uniqueness of
Muslim culture is that it is based on the notion that God created
different people and nations for them to know each other. The uniqueness
of Muslim culture is that it rejects collective punishment in all shapes
and forms. Each individual is responsible for his actions, says the
Qur'an, so why should the Danish people be punished because of the folly
of a caricaturist and editor? Do we accept the punishment of the Egyptian
people because a mad preacher screams that the Jews are the grandsons of
monkeys and pigs and that Christians are heathens and all such spiteful
preaching that contradicts with the Qur'anic values of tolerance and
peaceful coexistence?
We have the right to express our dissent peacefully but not to burn
flags and sabotage embassies as if Muslims are at war with all other
people.