"For My Father"

"For My Father" is a movie that plays in Tel Aviv, Israel. It is the story of Tarek who crosses over from the Palestinian Autonomy to Tel Aviv in order to blow himself up and killing innocents by doing so. Right from the beginning you get the sense that those who equip him with the explosives belt aren't quite sure that he will pull through with it.
To be on the safe side, they attach a cell phone that can be remotely activated. However, the bomb will go off if someone tries to unhook the cell phone.

As Tarek makes his move on the Tel Aviv market, he is about to push the button but it is a dud. Unsettled, he walks around till he comes to a neighborhood where Katz, one of the store owners is in the business to get this and that for equipment that is outdated. So he asks him if he can get a new trigger part. Across from Katz is Keren who runs a shop that she hardly make a living with.

While Tarek is waiting for Sunday, the day after the Sabbath to go back to the market once he has the new trigger part, he becomes friends with Katz whose son died giving his service to the country and still deals with the loss even so it has been many years ago, and Keren who likes Tarek after being initially confrontational when asked if he could use her bath room.

Soon it becomes clear that, even so Tarek is angry with the Jews and their "occupation," he is not quite sure how to handle the situation. Katz takes on an immense liking who hired Tarek to fix the leak in his roof. Only one person does not welcome him. He is a sort of neighborhood police officer who watches out for any suspicious activities involving Arabs. Also the news is out that a terrorist made it through the check point.

The more Tarek and Keren get to know each other, it is clear that both are outcasts within their own societies. Keren for stopping being religious after she had a baby out of wet lock that died within her womb and her orthodox brothers and friends who are overzelous for her to come back to the fold while she despises everything it stands for after being ridiculed and condemned for her pre-marital actions which make her believe that God is not the God of forgiveness and mercy. Tarek is the procuct of Islamist fundamentalist brain washing. His family is being frowned upon because of his father wanting the best for his son.

For months and years he managed to take his son to the Natzeret soccer team in which Tarek excelled. Even when the 2. intifada started his father still managed to bring his son, less often though, to the practices and games. Because of that, his family lost their status in society, they were out of work and poverty took over. So Tarek wants to kill himself and others in order to bring honor back to his father and also the money that has been promised to his family for doing a "righteous" act. Also, Tarek is being threatened that they will come after his parents if he doesn't do as being told. At one point, the suspicious person who was with Tarek in the beginning is about to explode the bomb remotely, only to be stopped in the nick of time.

On Sunday as Tarek decends upon the market, ready to activate the bomb, he runs into Katz. He asks Katz, who he likes, to leave. Instead Katz retords "why don't you leave, I was here first?" Katz prods into Tarek's conscience, knowing full well what he came for to do. He asks him for who he does it and Tarek tells him "for my father." Katz almost convinced him that he will only kill his parents by doing so. For a moment it seems that Tarek realizes the predicament that he is in. He doesn't want to hurt the ones he cares for but is in conflict with what he came to do. In the meantime the neigborhood cop rounded up snipers to be placed around the market who successfully hit Tarek. However, in the last moments of his consciousness, the brainwashing takes over and lastly he pushes the button.

Just as the explosion is about to happen, Keren, with whom Tarek spent the night together on the beach of Tel Aviv, awakens. As she hears the explosion, she discovers the nails that Tarek left behind, which was part of his explosives belt and would have caused so much more mortal damage to bystanders.

Truly, I felt as if I could cry. I do not have zero sympathy for the Imams who declare their hatred to their congregations year in and year out. Islam is through and through satanic. And yet, I sympathize with Tarek who clearly wasn't the typical suicide bomber who would scream "Alahu Akbar" just before he pushes the button. Instead he does it with ulterior motives. First and mostly to restore the good name of his family, his father, a well known violinist, and to ease the financial burden with the money promised for committing this murderous act. While in the same token he is torn between the people he comes to love and respect as well as his family that he, right or wrong, wants to make their lives better.

Sadly, this is not the normal case. However, several women who chose to do the same did it as a last resort for their honor after they either were unable to work or because their husbands divorced them or some other kind of dishonor fell upon them to make this the only avenue they knew with the hope of being in paradise for eternity. It also clearly showed the legalism of those that do not love God in the Spirit but by the letter of the law and therefore themselves are unable to show forgiveness and mercy to those who failed and stumpled. Instead of doing everything to come lovingly alongside them, and help them back on the right path, they drive them further away from the love of God into a live of hopelessness.

Definitely a must see movie even after I spoiled the plot. :-)