Published: 18 June 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Volunteers respond to politically polarised film footage from Israel and the Palestinian territories in doco by Israeli film-maker
EVEN THOUGH HE tries to maintain a cool, scientific demeanour, Israeli director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz finally lets slip a twinge of despair at the end of this interesting geopolitical Rorschach test. Alexandrowicz sits studiously behind a monitor as he invites a succession of volunteers to enter an adjacent booth.
There, they have a choice of 40 clips to watch, snippets of life in Israel, while he asks them to share their thoughts on what they see. Half of the clips are from right-wing Israeli sources; the other half are from B’Tselem, an Israeli human-rights organisation that aims to document abuses of power in Palestinian territories.
Alexandrowicz quickly zeroes in on the pensive Maia, a Jewish American who supports Israel, but brings an insistent scepticism to everything she watches. He is the director of pro-Palestine documentaries such as The Inner Tour (2001) and The Law in These Parts (2011) – and believes her to be his ideal audience: a possible convert.
From the sympathy she displays on watching flagrant abuses such as a soldier kicking a street kid, that seems like a realistic hope. But it’s quickly apparent that Maia filters everything through confirmation bias. When one child seems to misremember his own name in a B’Tselem video of a home search by Israeli soldiers, she wonders whether it has been staged.
FULL STORY The Viewing Booth review – seeing is believing in the Israel-Palestine conflict (Guardian)
Photo: Maia in The Viewing Booth (screen shot)
