Quotes of the Day

In a scene from Hany Abu-Assad's new film Paradise Now, a young Palestinian stands in front of a video camera taping his martyr's message before being dispatched to Tel Aviv on a suicide mission. Then the sight of one of his handlers munching a sandwich sets him thinking about his mother, and how he has forgotten to give her some last-minute household instructions. "Mom, before I forget," he says, veering from the script, clutching a Kalashnikov rifle, "I saw some good water filters at Al Mokhtar ... buy them there next time."

In a film packed with wrenching moments, this one remains one of the most shocking, even for the filmmaker who crafted it. Abu-Assad, 43, an Arab-Israeli who emigrated to Amsterdam in the early 1980s to be an airplane engineer, co-scripted and directed the film, based on years of research into the subject. He interviewed the relatives of dead Palestinian bombers and pored over the interrogation transcripts of would-be attackers in jail. In the end, it was not the mass killings or the suicides that most disturbed him. It was how ordinary the attackers were. "I was shocked by my own stupidity," he says. "You think suicide bombers are ruthless fanatics. But they were very similar to you and me."

That sense of recognition makes the film more grueling to watch — even for audiences who have grown inured to the near-nightly footage of suicide attacks in Baghdad. Here the dissection of the phenomenon is a lot more intimate and painful. The first 20 minutes of the film suggests a mundane domestic drama and West Bank life looks crushingly dull. Two buddies, auto mechanics in their early 20s, kill time by drinking tea on a hillside above Nablus, gossiping about girls and whining about their boss. Dishes are washed, children are put to bed; there is not much else to do at night. Then one of the intifadeh's local leaders tells the friends that they've been chosen to blow themselves up the next day, in a mission that has been planned for months. What has led them to volunteer for duty? The answer lies partly in one man's need to expunge his sense of shame over his father's political betrayal. But the other simply wants to avoid being known as a total loser.

The notion that suicide bombers are not all sociopaths is sure to incense many Israelis when the film opens in Israel in late October, the same day as its U.S. release. Yet the Israeli army which has controlled access to Nablus since the intifadeh erupted five years ago allowed Abu-Assad to film there. It was the first full-scale movie production the city had ever seen. Desperate for entertainment, residents elbowed each other for a front-row view of the daily shoots, and a few sharp locals rented plastic chairs to the crowds.

Inevitably, the project also raised hackles among Palestinian paramilitaries. Feuding factions in some of the West Bank's refugee camps suspected that Abu-Assad — with an Israeli co-producer on the team — might undermine the martyrdom mystique that has enabled the intifadeh for years. One group, which Abu-Assad will not name, eventually kidnapped the location manager for two hours, seeking reassurances that the film would not denigrate its cause. Shortly after that, an explosive device detonated close to the crew, killing three people not associated with the film. Abu-Assad withdrew, finishing the project in his native city of Nazareth.

When Abu-Assad showed the film to a Palestinian audience in Ramallah in April, a fierce argument raged about its message; some said it portrayed an ugly Palestinian face to Westerners, while others were struck by its astute portrayal of West Bank life. Abu-Assad says the sharply divided opinions pleased him, confirming that he had avoided making a predictable propaganda film. "I did not make what they wanted me to make," he says.

Critics are impressed, too. The film, which has been sold in 45 countries, won the Blue Angel award for best European film at the Berlin Film Festival in February — it is a Dutch-German-French production — as well as the festival's Amnesty International film prize and the Berliner Morgenpost readers' prize for best film. It received strong reviews in France, where it opened earlier this month. It opens in Germany in late September and in Britain early next year. Abu-Assad isn't certain the film will change anyone's political opinions. "I feel I have more or less succeeded in opening a debate that was very, very difficult" about suicide bombings, he says. "I hope people will see it, then judge it, and then discuss it. It is good to discuss it."

• VIVIENNE WALT
• Arab-Israeli director Hany Abu-Assad portrays Palestinian suicide bombers as regular guys