Rachel

Simone Bitton's unsettling documentary pays tribute to 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist who died tragically in the Gaza Strip after being crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer that she and her International Solidarity Movement (ISM) associates were trying to block in protest against Israel's destruction of local dwellings. Israeli spokesperson Major Avital Leibovich, who notes that the 2003 incident “received a lot of press,” claims that a mound of dirt obscured the driver's vision. French-Israeli filmmaker Bitton tries to re-create the event through video footage and recorded emergency calls, rounding out the tragic story with interviews of Israeli military personnel, eyewitnesses who dispute the official version, a police investigator, and those who knew or were close to Corrie—including her parents, fellow activists, and college professors. Bitton brings Corrie's perspective into play through photos, home movies, and diary entries (as Corrie's letters indicate, she was neither as naïve nor as humorless as her detractors might like to believe). In fact, the more her portrait develops, the more admirable Corrie becomes—whether one agrees with her actions or not. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)