I had to watch Five Broken Cameras two times in one sitting. The first time was to get a sense of what was going on, and the second time was to sort out how I felt about it. A Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who filmed all the footage and originally just wanted to record home videos of his youngest son, collaborated with Israeli Guy Davidi, who helped Burnat edit and structure Five Broken Cameras.
Basically if Burnat lived anywhere else, his home videos would be boring, and no one would watch them, but his youngest son is born at the same time that a wall is being built to separate his village from an Israeli settlement. Because the wall is being built on their farm land and not on settlement land, there is a conflict, but unlike what we see on the news, the demonstrations are peaceful and contain colorful characters from the neighborhood like Adeeb, a literal tree hugger, Phil, the village pied piper whom all the children love, and Phil’s brother, Daba, a grinning goofball who climbs cranes to stop the construction. As the protests continue, the Israeli soldiers’ reaction escalates. The people in the settlement begin using what Burnat alleges are illegal tactics (building structures and putting down trailers at night) and physical abuse to stop the protests and filming. Burnat limits himself to filming, but he and his cameras are not immune to the physical effects of this escalation. As things escalate, the farmers gain both Israeli and international attention the support. The farmers they find creative new ways to peacefully protest.
Initially I wondered if I was watching propaganda. The mother explains proudly to the children what they are doing, and the kids mimic the parents by marching, which is natural, but also deliberate. The children dutifully repeat what the struggle is about, and they cough when no tear gas smoke is around. Burnat complains about welts appearing on his child, but they are not shown. When one handcuffed protestor is shot in the leg, the camera cuts briefly as if it blinked so we don’t fully see what happens. THEN the footage becomes undeniable, and no amount of editing can hide that the army’s reaction to the peaceful protest has escalated too far, especially when there are thick clouds of tear gas, and the person who advocated and stood between protestors and the army to prevent rocks from and shots from being exchanged dies. The mother no longer wants her husband attending the protest about 56 minutes into Five Broken Cameras. Then the rocks fly, and the children are coming up with ideas that differ from what their parents taught them. They don’t understand why their parents aren’t reacting violently.
Five Broken Cameras may have been filmed by an amateur, but the documentary is filled with foreboding imagery though it does not lack hope that it is possible to heal the wounds created by this conflict. I would highly recommend watching Five Broken Cameras without any distractions since it took me awhile to acclimate to what was going on and figure out whom everyone was. I would even urge you to watch it two times in a row to really get the impact of what you have just witnessed because if you’re like me, you have always cared about what will happen to the Israelis, but don’t know much about the lives of ordinary Palestinians. Five Broken Cameras improves with repeated viewing and is a must see for documentary lovers or those interested in this never-ending conflict.