A House in Jerusalem
The Palestinian director Muayad Alayan turns to Israel for a deeply felt ghost story commenting on the current conflict.
Ghost stories take many shapes and forms and very often do so in films that can be classified as belonging to the horror genre. In contrast to that, Muayad Alayan’s A House in Jerusalem is something very, very different, even though its story centres on a ghost figure. It is that of a young girl named Rasha (newcomer Sheherazade Makhoul Farrell) who is only visible to a child of somewhat similar age, Rebecca (Miley Locke). In this case, however, the ghost is not menacing and most importantly of all this is not a case of the supernatural element being the crux of the movie. Instead, it is used as a device through which to comment in a wholly individual way on the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The film’s title is a reference to a property that has been inherited by Rebecca's father, Michael (Johnny Harris). He brings his 12-year-old daughter there hoping that the change of scene will help her since she has not coped well in getting over the accidental death of her mother (that had occurred in a car crash in England when Rebecca had been present but had escaped with only minor injuries). The house had come into the possession of Rebecca’s family years before when acquired by Rebecca's grandfather and it’s an attractive property. However, when her dad is at work and Rebecca is alone in the house, there are unsettling signs of a presence of some kind. In discovering its grounds for herself, Rebecca has already noticed a well in the garden and on opening up its covered shaft has found an old doll in the water. On handing this to her father he had thrown it away, but before long we realise that Rasha is emerging from the well, which is in fact her hiding place, intent on entering the house to find and recover her doll. For Rebecca, however, Rasha soon ceases to be a mysterious and frightening figure and, as Alayan’s film shows us the two girls becoming friends, we learn that the house had once belonged to Rasha’s family.
Through the talk between the girls, we come to realise that it was in 1948 that the property had been acquired by Rebecca's family and that Rasha’s parents had fled from their home due to being Palestinians but had become separated from their daughter in the process. Rebecca is too young to understand this history while Rasha is the spirit of the child she was then and therefore unaware of the passing of time. Thus it comes about that Rebecca having accepted Rasha as a real child, seeks to help her by tracing where her family can be found now. This takes Rebecca outside her new home and even on a journey to Bethlehem and these scenes realistically portray the harsh divisions affecting this part of the world in recent times but ahead of the current war.
Several things are inherent in this strange but pertinent tale. First, it's a work that deliberately links past and present by offering a 21st century narrative that is actually rooted in the events of 1948. Secondly, it consciously invites sympathy in equal measure for both Rebecca and Rasha, the former a victim through personal bereavement and the latter a victim on account of historical circumstance. Thirdly, the film’s viewpoint is one based on common humanity and one that recognises recent times to be part of a tragic history that continues to play on. It further emerges that the supernatural format adopted is one which, while clearly able to express concern over real events, helps to eliminate the possibility of the film being seen as political in a one-sided propagandist mode.
There is a huge sense here of Muayad Alayan giving us a film in which her whole heart and being were invested. Consequently, I would be delighted if I could say that it works perfectly. In the event, though, that is not quite how it plays: on occasion the more realistic scenes and the ghost tale elements come together rather uneasily, the notion that only Rebecca can see Rasha is ignored in one scene and towards the end of the film cutting between two locations distracts from the drama rather than building it up. For much of the time it is the two child actresses who carry the weight of the film and both indeed give sympathetic performances. Nevertheless, Muayad Alayan’s screenplay does include some emotional passages for Rebecca that demand a little too much from a young player like Miley Locke. But, while these points add up to the extent of rendering A House in Jerusalem a less than perfect work, one still wishes to recommend it. Two factors above all are the cause of that: one is the sheer depth of Muayad Alayan’s commitment and the other is the performance in the second half by the actress Souad Faress. The nature of her role only becomes apparent in the closing scenes but her contribution has the same depth of emotional commitment as that of her writer/director and renders the film deeply touching in its concluding moments.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Johnny Harris, Miley Locke, Sheherazade Makhoul Farrell, Souad Faress, Makram J. Khoury, Mouna Hawa, Rebecca Calder, Jiana Awwad, Shaden Kanboura, Riyad Sliman.
Dir Muayad Alayan, Pro Rachel Robey, Muayad Alayan, Dorothe Beinemeier, Hanneke Niens, Giorgos Karnavas, Alastair Clark, Rami Alayan and Abeer Salman, Screenplay Rami Alayan and Muayad Alayan, Ph Sebastian Bock, Pro Des Bashar Hassuneh, Ed Rachel Erskine, Music Alex Simu, Costumes Hamada Atallah.
KeyFilm/Palcine Productions/Red Balloon Film/Wellington Film/ZDF/Arte-Peccadillo Pictures.
103 mins. Palestine/Germany/The Netherlands/Turkey/Egypt/United Arab Emirates/Qatar/Lebanon. 2022. UK Rel: 31 May 2024. Cert. 12A.
