Normally I hate, haaaaaate watching trauma films of global majority folks because I fully believe that we are more than our tragedies and have many stories of joy, silliness, and delight within us. But the world, particularly the western world, still cannot comprehend the tragedies continuously endured by the Palestinian people.
They balk at the undeniable evidence of apartheid and genocide that is staring at them in the face and even more so at the idea of resistance. This is the weight that Farah Nabulsi carefully and gorgeously carries in her feature film debut The Teacher, which had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and will roll out nationwide on April 18, courtesy of Watermelon Pictures.
In this gripping drama by Oscar nominated and BAFTA winning director Farah Nabulsi (The Present), Palestinian schoolteacher Basem (Saleh Bakri) faces personal turmoil after a tragic incident involving his son. He finds solace in a deep bond with his student Adam and British social worker Lisa (Imogen Poots). Meanwhile, an American attorney and his wife push for the return of their son, an Israeli soldier held by a Palestinian resistance group, leading to tensions over a potential prisoner exchange. The intertwining stories highlight themes of empathy and conflict, culminating in a powerful narrative marked by unexpected twists.
Prior to writing and directing The Teacher, Farah Nabulsi has only written and/or produced a handful of short films, the most prominent being The Present which premiered at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2020 and won the coveted Audience Award for Best Film. It went on to win over 60 International Film Festival Jury and Audience Awards, a BAFTA award, and it scored an Oscar nomination.
For The Teacher to be her feature film debut, it is an astonishing work of crucial filmmaking not in only the incredible emotional depths she draws out of her actors but in telling a tightly contained story backed by a beautiful and haunting score by Alex Baranowski that send countless ripples in the unfathomable pain it touches upon. What’s even more astonishing is that this story was able to told and filmed at all in the West Bank itself, to which the filmmaker credits her privilege as a British citizen (she herself is a daughter of a Palestinian mother and Palestinian-Egyptian father).
Saleh Bakri is simply phenomenal as the titular role of Basem El-Saleh and exhibits so much grace underneath an ocean of pain and loss. That compliment extends equally to his costars Imogen Poots as Lisa and Muhammad Abed Elrahman as Adam, the former being a compassionate and lovely co-worker and a perfect example of white privilege used correctly in one particular scene where Israeli agents abruptly come into El-Saleh’s house. With Elrahman who portrays Adam (one of El-Saleh’s students), this young actor does a fantastic job of taking us through the journey of innocence lost and we feel for him every single step of the way.
The rest of the cast are fully fleshed out, no matter how big or small their role are, from Mahmoud Bakri as Yacoub who crucially establishes the older brother that we instantly care for in his few scenes before tragedy falls upon him to Stanley Townsend as Simon Cohen who manages to convey his complex feelings with very little words as a Jewish American whose storyline of desperately bringing his kidnapped son back home.
While the focus is primarily on Basem, plot attention is also paid to Simon and Rachel Cohen (Andrea Irvine)’s harrowing journey to rescue their kidnapped son & IDF soldier Nathaniel. I do greatly admire this storyline in terms of the filmmaker’s attempts to provide depth to the Jewish characters, but ultimately it ends up being a tad underdeveloped even though Townsend has an incredible scene with Saleh Bakri in which one of the most memorable line is uttered by Basem with much sadness: “Because they know that your son is worth thousands of mine”.
And while I appreciate Imogen Poots’ character, I would have much rather preferred to see the continued relationship with Basem’s ex-wife Salwa (portrayed by Asmaa Azaizeh who was used way too briefly) as a key central character and Lisa not being delegated to supportive romantic interest but as a good friend and true ally who understands the burden and horrors the Palestinians go through on a daily basis. The love story is sweet and the actors do their jobs connecting wonderfully but I found it to be unnecessary as a storytelling device.
My biggest takeaway from the film and something that will stay with me long after I’ve seen this is how Farah Nabulsi portrayed the Palestinian resistance. Portrayed neither as a knight in shining armor or as the terrorist menace the western world is obsessed with in having them to be, they are mostly in the shadows and in whispers with only one scene where Basem talks to a resistance fighter as the latter questions Basem in how firm his commitment to the cause is. As the story unfolds and Adam wishes to enact justice for the murder of his brother by the hands of an Israeli settler, we absolutely see why he would be interested in becoming a resistance fighter.
This is accentuated at the end of the film where it brings up Operation Protective Edge (and our first indication of when the film takes place around 2014) and the deaths of over two thousand Palestinians. One can only imagine that with the genocide happening now with over sixty thousand martyred Palestinians the seeds of resistance have been planted at a significantly higher rate. For better or worse, the idea of armed resistance against a brutal occupation is a conversation that must happen for there to be any progress in a free Palestine. I believe this film is a stepping stone in that conversation and it starts with finally moving away from the overly villainous portrayal that a keffiyeh-wearing fighter is the villain to be feared and killed.
With this and Watermelon Pictures also distributing The Encampments (another must-see film which I reviewed here) and From Ground Zero, we are finally able to see films about Palestinians that show them as simply human beings that like any other, deserve liberation and freedom without the boots of oppression bearing down upon them. While it is utterly depressing that such atrocities must be documented and shown in full view, there is still a block that resides in much of the western world where they just cannot comprehend the horror and either try to avoid it as best they can or at worse, try to justify it. A lot of this inability is due to the power of media and its effect in convincing so many on what a group of people are like.
The Teacher, like The Encampments, is an important step to fighting against that colonized mainstream narrative. While not a perfect film, it is an important one that hopefully paves the way where films not centered on trauma can be made about the Palestinian people. But the art can only reflect life it bases itself upon so there is a long, long way to go before that happens. Be sure to check this film out when it opens nationwide in the U.S. on April 18.
