DVD Review: Suicide Killers
July 16th, 2007
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
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Look at the headlines, and particularly if you’re someone in a Western country it’s all so incredibly puzzling: how can young men and women blow themselves up? Datelines to stories become interchangeable. Pakistan. Israel. Iraq. News reports (as usual) detail a Middle East seemingly in peril. And a recent story claims a new Al Qaeda “cell” may be heading to the U.S.
What’s the mentality? What’s the mindset? And why?
Trying to find a DVD that isn’t a long editorial to give you a clue is difficult. Most films quickly sketch good guys and bad guys. Few get you inside the terrorists’ skulls and let you see how they think, then let you judge for yourself.
A few months ago, I saw a DVD of a movie that dealt with suicide bomber and after it was done a friend said: “This is b.s. They clearly wanted us to feel sorry for those guys!” And he was right: the movie depicted an evil U.S. government as being the reason why key characters became terrorists or enemies of the U.S. You could tell the director’s viewpoint 15 minutes into the film.
So there has been gap for those who want to understand, as opposed to those who want to watch watch a two hour editorial. A gap until now.
Director Pierre Rehov (Hostages of Hatred) has filled the gap for us with Suicide Killers — a film that should be watched by all sides in this life-and-death debate and by people of all political parties. It is required viewing if you want to understand how some (we underline “some”) Muslims are happily ready to die as glorified martyrs by blowing up groups of innocent men, women and even tiny children with them.
How does Rehov do it?
By taking us into the culture, to where they live, train or are jailed. And by offering us excellent television and film footage PLUS a series of detailed, stand-back interviews: of victims who tell how their lives were impacted, the supportive family members of bombers, the psychologists who look at the psychology behind the attacks (some concluding the males bomb due to their culture’s sexual repression), experts of all kinds — and the bombers. But with a difference:
Obviously no one who was a SUCCESSFUL suicide bomber could be interviewed for this 80-minute film. The interviews are with people who failed or flinched.
In other words, we’re offered the “B” list of killers, but it’s shocking nonetheless. A few of the highlights you’ll see:
(1) Some women who are in jail because they failed on their missions. One smilingly and happily talks about how she would be willing to blow some people (including kids) up. One is convinced that if she can just succeed next time, she will be one of the Koran’s highly-touted 72 virgins in paradise.
(2) A Palestinian bomber who in effect hopes his business will become the family business and that his kids will take up his work.
(3) A bomber who says there would be no problem blowing up a nursery of kids.
(4) A summer camp for kids to teach them how they can be suicide bombers.
(5) A bomber who couldn’t carry out his mission when he saw the kids it would kill.
A key theme is the theory that many of the men who become suicide bombers do so because their culture left them so repressed and oppressed sexually that they see an eternal afterlife meeting their immediate (and hormone) needs better than life here on earth. It’s Viva The Afterlife. Rehov also paints a portrait of a society where many Muslim moderates are now caught between their culture’s two extremes. In the end, the bombers come across as seemingly brainwashed young men and women who would probably try again if released.
Suicide Killers should be viewed by everyone. But, most likely, it won’t be for everyone. Those who are sympathetic to the bombers will say it’s biased against them. Those who don’t believe that everyone has a world view (as distorted as it may be) won’t like it, either.
But those who want to see how people think and what kind of impact their atrocities had on victims and on the bombers’ own families will want to view it. And in the end, quite a few people won’t sleep well at night. Because you view it and the prognosis is: this problem is going to be with us for a (long) while.
TMV GIVES THIS DVD 10 STARS ON ITS SCALE OF ONE TO TEN.
This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 12:15 am and is filed under Hamas/Al-Aksa Martyrs/Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Fatah, Terrorism, Palestine, DVDs, Middle East, War On Terror, Israel, Entertainment. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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