This Is Not Living

This aptly titled documentary profiles the lives of eight Palestinian women from various social and religious backgrounds who--in voices alternately inflected with passion, outrage, and fear--describe the mind-numbing grind of war and its associated emotions of anger and grief. “When you go out you're not sure if you'll return,” says one, a media specialist whose job editing news footage has brought her face to face with the horrors of war (she likens her life to a cat carrying kittens from room to room, trying--but unable--to find a safe place for her children). A shopkeeper, admitting she has little to do all day but read the newspaper, recalls happier days when shoppers actually strolled through her store. A teenager, remembering the death of her brother, whom she considers a martyr “defending his homeland,” says that despite this tragedy she's willing to sacrifice more. And a farm worker describes being chased and stoned by settlers while picking olives in a grove of trees she's frequented for half a century. Filmmaker Alia Arasoughly interweaves footage of angry mobs and warfare, backed by an incessant barrage of wailing, gunfire, and shouting, to drive home the sense of profound deprivation that forms the backdrop of these war-torn lives. A powerful, if depressing, look at the perennially woeful situation in the Middle East, from a lesser-seen Palestinian perspective, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (A. Cantú)