A rural Palestinian landowner asks private secretary Thomas Hopkins (Billy Howle) how he gets to his land. Thomas, a benevolent Brit, warns the landowner of a new scheme and that registration can help him. Palestinian landowners are going to need that help as the British are starting to confiscate land away, giving them to Zionists. Annemaire Jacir’s Palestine 36 captures stories from villages outside of Al Quds (‘Jerusalem’), showing the country’s class system. Some, like Hanan (Hiam Abbass), live off the land while others, like Yusuf (Karim Daoud Anaya) try to be a bridge between communities. There are landowners as well as journalists like Khouloud (Yasmine Al Massri) bearing witness to land confiscation. In charge of the confiscation are British men like Captain Wingate (Robert Aramayo), a supporter of Zionism.

The powers that be who are in charge of selling this film do so with genre expectations, as It sells itself to viewers as an action packed epic, which, there are moments of that. But at its core, the film captures political intrigue, conflict mostly manifesting through discussions between opposing parties. Some of these verbal conflicts cross ethnic lines while others show diverging opinions even within similar communities. Again, on the one hand, there’s Thomas, a useless ally who actually knows the history in Palestine. Palestine 36, then, shows people like Wingate who buy into Zionism, framing it as a Western idea.

Despite Palestine 36 having partial British funding, the British characters thankfully don’t hog the spotlight. The film captures opposing approaches within Palestinians sometimes referring to themselves as that and at others, as Arabs. On the one hand, the film shows what may be the most polite train robbery in film.On the other hand, it depicts people like Khouloud and Amir (Dhafer L’Abidine), her pro-British businessman husband. Yes, it’s a bit of a trope where characters with opposing viewpoints somehow have relatively bittersweet marriages. But as a reminder, bourgeois people in racialized communities assimilate and infiltrate colonizer communities as a game.

Palestine 36‘s two groups of characters in this film inadvertently can notice an absent third group – Jewish characters. The film depicts them either coming in through ships or in European short shorts (I’m pro short shorts here) working their assigned land. In fairness to Jewish people, some never left Palestine and lived in relative harmony with other religions. But I’m relatively happy with this decision because it reminds viewers of the true villains – the British. Through Wingate, it shows the British terrorizing citizens and those citizens, despite everything, fighting back. These citizens are heroic but more importantly, martyr-like, dying so that future generations can take Palestine back.

Canadian film lovers can watch Palestine 36 in select art house theatres, perfect for post-Easter viewing.