It's ridiculous and smart, hilarious and terrifying, difficult to swallow and probably a necessary antidote to the cacophonous history of a land that all too often seems anything but holy.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 11, 2003

It makes for an intriguing example of how to use art, rather than bombs, to make a sustained political point.

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 8, 2003

Simmering, sharply observed work.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 25, 2003

Suleiman's argument seems to be that the situation between Palestinians and Israelis has settled into an hopeless stalemate, in which everyday life incorporates elements of paranoia, resentment and craziness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 25, 2003

A film whose eerie blend of deadpan wit and inner angst upset all your expectations.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 24, 2003

A pleasant surprise.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 4, 2003

An almost irresistible work of art.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 28, 2003

The film offers up simultaneous critiques of Palestinian and Israeli extremism, but the most radical thing about it is that it's often disquietingly funny.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 13, 2003

A collection of repetitive, seemingly unrelated vignettes, as symbolic as they are self-consciously waggish.

| Mar 13, 2003

A film of bits and pieces, of sly humor and quiet realizations of deeper meaning.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 24, 2003

No matter what your political sensibilities, you can't deny this movie's striking originality.

Full Review | Jan 31, 2003

It's an effective, arresting and terribly moving picture, even when Suleiman's polemical points are ambiguous.

| Jan 31, 2003

What to make of it? Call it a red balloon lofted into the collective imagination to unsettle, to haunt, even, perhaps, to arouse faint dreams of possibility, if not hope.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 17, 2003

Veers uneasily and unsatisfyingly from kitschy, agitprop surrealism to a laconic spareness that is less profound than tedious.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 17, 2003

Unfortunately the gags here vary enormously in their effectiveness.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 16, 2003

A movie of long, expressive silences, Divine Intervention articulates things that have never been articulated, at least on the screen.

Full Review | Jan 14, 2003

A divinely absurdist comedy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 10, 2003

It's impossible not to be impressed by the resourcefulness of Palestinian director Elia Suleiman's new film, Divine Intervention, which actually manages to find humour in the condition of living in Arab Israel.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 10, 2003

The interlocking series of setups, punch lines and non sequiturs add up to something touching, provocative and wonderfully strange.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 23, 2002

This Competition film achieves a level of artistry and firm control over a clear, concise vision that makes it worthy of festival honors.

Full Review | Dec 23, 2002