meeza
I am going to immigrate this film review into the unchartered waters of Punsylvania! OK, so I overdo the pun thang in my movie reviews. But it is America, a land of freedom & expression! So I will do the same in my review of the independent film "Amreeka". Are you still with me? Or did you deport yourself to another entertainment medium? OK cool, you are still here! "Amreeka" stars Nisreen Faour as Muna Farah, a Ramallah single mother who moves to America with her teenage son Fadi. They move into the Illinois home of Muna's sister Raghda Halaby and family. Muna and Fadi find the U.S. migration transition process difficult as they encounter injustices and prejudices. Muna is constantly denied jobs for banking employment, which was her occupation in Palestine. So she has no other choice but to follow the trails of Harold & Kumar and visit the White Castle; which is where she eventually finds employment. It becomes a very self-demeaning situation for Muna in not earning the Mula she originally thought she would earn as a U.S. banking associate. Muna lies to Fadi and Raghda & family by informing them that she works in a local bank. She should really work at White Lies Castle! On the other Ramallahian, Fadi is constantly bullied at school by a group of young boys because of his ethnicity. Writer-Director Cherien Dabis presents her Dabis tale on the prejudicial hardships that good-honest middle easterners face in immigrating to United States with an authenticity that does not make one feel sympathy for them but rather root for their success in the so-called "land of opportunity". Nisreen Faour's heartbreaking & courageous performance as Muna was very solid! The fabulous Faour could be saying to herself "I am rica" if she continues her acting proficiency and eventually gets offered lucrative roles. She carried the film from start to finish! Hiam Abbass' supporting performance as sister Raghda was also worth noting and was not a "rag doll" effort. The Abbass also dove nicely into a deep supporting performance in 2008's "The Visitor". "Amreeka" does sometimes almost borders itself on plot boredom, but that never materializes primarily due to Nisreen Faour's superlative starring performance. Visit "Amreeka" today! **** Good
Chad Shiira
Contrary to popular belief among the narrow-minded, not all Arabs are Muslims. Case and point: only one of the two female office workers, employees at a Palestinian bank, have their heads covered, in the opening scene of "Ameerka", a relevant film about the emigrants that makes some of us leery, still, eight years and counting after that fateful day in September. Even if Muna(Nisreem Faour) was a Muslim, and did wear a headscarf in compliance with Islamic law, would it make this divorced mother of one any less likable? Of course not. Not all Muslims are terrorists, contrary to popular belief. By default, "Ameerka" is a political movie, but it doesn't have to be one; it's the people that Muna and her son Fadi(Melkar Maleem) meet stateside, who make their presence a political matter. Despite having no outlying signifiers to correspond with their ethnicity, as if being Arab itself is supposed to denote one's religious affiliation in the first place, people prefigure their disposition, and treat them accordingly, with suspicion, with disregard.At the outset of "Ameerka", the small Palestinian family is made instantly relatable in a sequence that establishes how close-knit Mni and Fadi are, which completely transcends their "otherness". When the mother asks her son about his homework, having just picked the boy up from his private school, they could be American, but this parental concern is transformed by context and becomes a Palestinian scene, as their intimacy is interrupted by the car's arrival at a checkpoint, ending any semblance of normality, in which the Israeli soldier goes about his vehicle inspection. Once home, a house they share with the family matriarch, Muna quietly asks Fadi to get the tomatoes from the car, reining her temper in while Fadi's grandmother complains about her daughter's forgetfulness. Those tomatoes came from the produce market, a hole in the wall where Muna, recently divorced, had encountered her ex-husband's new wife, who is both younger and skinnier, and arguably, prettier, than her. When Muna boards the plane to America with her son, she's carrying around a broken heart, not a bomb.The Farahs go to Illinois. That's where Muna's sister Raghda(Hiam Abbass) and her family lives. It's also where Fadi got accepted to an expensive school. Blissfully unaware of her own Americanization, Raghda possesses an American's arrogance, talking about Palestine as if she still knew her. Muna knows. She knows it's better to be a foreigner than a prisoner. Muna corrects her older sister, who feels Palestinian because she shops at a Palestinian grocers, and can speak in her own native language without the cold stares of American housewives that greeted them at the supermarket. With enough English to get by, Muna goes job-hunting, and ends up serving burgers at White Castle, a last resort to unemployment, after being turned away by a host of prejudicial bank managers. The job embarrasses Muna, but she's a go-getter, so there's definitely a place for her in this country. When Muna's principal, a Polish-Jew(remember: Muna is Palestinian), drives her back to work(after being called in for a conference over Fadi's fisticuffs with his tormentor), he stays for lunch, after returning the handbag she left behind in his car. As he eats the famous White Castle fare, she mops, but then he invites her to sit with him(remember: the principal is Jewish), because she's entitled to be there, like she and Fadi are entitled to be in America. Muna has the right to dream of a better life. Living paycheck to paycheck is not good enough for her. She sells a weight-loss drink, and later in "Ameerka", she slips on the liquid, the handiwork of Fadi's tormentor, who knocks an open can off the White Castle counter. Flat on her back, that's where Muna might end up in this country, but she has a right to fail, and she has a right to get up, and try again.
Amy
Knowing my deep interest in the subject of Palestine, a friend tipped me off to this movie. "Have you seen the trailer yet?" she asked. "It looks hilarious and beautiful, and poignant".She wasn't wrong.Over the last ten or twelve years, I have been gleaning as much information and experience as I can about the Palestine/Israel question. I found this film to be an excellent, genuine portrayal of not only life in occupied Palestine, but also of what life is like for those who choose to emigrate. It isn't a high-budget, high-production value film, but it is sensitively written, superbly acted, and the characters stay with you long after you leave the theater.Not only that, but it is so heartening to be able to see a movie about Arabs that portrays them simply as people instead of terrorists, and is honest about the kind of racism they face in this country on a regular basis. Lets see more of these kinds of films, please! Mabrook to all those who worked on this gorgeous film!
