And 2AM's London Film Festival 2010 Lowlight: ‘Miral’ A wasted opportunity.

...and a bit of a rant Mark Kermode style

Schnabel, Schanbel, Schanbel why did you let your girlfriend write the script? That is just to start with and something to end with as the nature of the relationship between the director and scriptwriter Rula Jebreal, whose memoir the film was based on, was only reveled to me after watching the film.

‘Miral’ as described so well by a friend is ‘a wasted opportunity’. I am really sad to agree with it but that’s what it is, a wasted opportunity that told the wrong story. I was really looking forward to this film, probably more than to any other in the festival as I think Schnabel is a great director, seamlessly crossing over from painting to cinema with a trio of fine films to his name, known for choosing interesting, charismatic real life characters to portray. From his accomplished 1996 debut ‘Basquiat’ to the strong, poetic follow up with ‘Before Night Falls’ in 2000 to the beautiful, moving ‘Diving Bell and The Butterfly’ in 2007, I expected ‘Miral’ to be brilliant and to have the emotional palette and depth of his other films. I also expected it to be largely about a great woman named Hind Husseini, a Palestinian woman who in 1948 while walking home stumbled upon a group of 55 orphaned Palestinian children, survivors of a Deir Yassin massacre, who were dropped off in Jerusalem and just left behind. She took them home, gave them food and shelter and later converted her grandfather's mansion into an orphanage which became a Dar Al-TIfl school providing education to orphans and other children from Palestinian towns and villages. This incredible woman dedicated her life to orphans and Dar Al-Tifl school until her death in 1994.

That was the story I was hoping to learn more about in the film, Hind Husseini is the person 112 minutes should have been dedicated to, this was a character who should have been the centre of the film through which the issues of never-ending Palestinian-Israeli conflict could have been told much more successfully. That is what Schnabel usually does; picks a person and a story worthy all that screen time and and does them justice. Sadly not this time. The film focuses on early life of Rula Jebreal ‘Miral’, a young girl who as a 7 year old was brought to Hind’s school by her father following her mother’s death. As a feisty, rebellious 17 year old Miral (played by Freida Pinto) is sent to teach at a refugee camp where for the first time she is brought face to face with struggle of her people, and effects of the conflict. She then gets involved with a political activist and faces a personal dilemma, to choose a path of violence or follow Hind’s belief that education is the way to peace. Subsequently she is sent to Italy on a scholarship where she starts her new life, eventually becomes a journalist and a political TV show host and writes her memoir that gets turned into a script which Schnabel (already interested in the project) didn’t like and he let Rula rewrite it which ultimately was the failing of the film.

I will not take away the good things about ‘Miral’ such as that it is an attempt of bringing attention to Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which in itself is a complex affair that doesn’t really get cinematic treatments but it was seen through the weaker story and left the real hero, Hind Husseini in the background wearing pretty bad wigs and cakey ageing make up. This is not to diminish Rula Jebreal’s turbulent life and her story, through listening to her talk at Q&A after the screening it was so clear she is an incredible, smart, strong and utterly stunning woman but Schnabel made a big mistake by not hiring a seasoned scriptwriter and shifting focus from Miral to Hind.

Leaving the cinema I thought of a couple of good things about ‘Miral’, things I wanted to remember but over the course of the night they disappeared and I was left cold, indifferent and disappointed. I will look forward to Julian Schnabel’s next film in hope he will return in fine form and in the meantime I shall cast ‘Miral’ as his love struck mistake.

Trailer HERE