This is the story of a man trying to get to his injured son. The complication? Set in the West Bank he lives on the Palestinian-controlled side and his wife and kids live in an Israeli-controlled area. 200 meters might as well be worlds apart when you don’t have the papers to cross the control borders and that’s the situation Mustafa (played by Ali Suliman) faces in this debut feature from Ameen Nayfeh.
The first part of the movie had an almost documentary feel to it, unsurprisingly since Ameen Nayfeh cut his teeth in documentary. It works because it shows what it means to be Palestinian for this family, living their life in checkpoints. The shift away from the documentary-style filming happens around the midpoint but the transition wasn’t jarring and I would have to re-watch it to try and pinpoint the specific moment of the shift. I think it happens around a narrative shift when Mustafa starts to take control of the journey after a major setback because before that he was more of an anxious passenger on the journey.
The movie is a drama but there were smart choices to have moments of Mustafa finding humour within the long and dangerous journey. And these moments are needed because even though an early smuggler he doesn’t go with, back when he was just trying to get to work after having his work permit denied, said that the worst that would happen if they were caught was a fine and a ban on ever entering Israel, we hear later on that someone got shot at a checkpoint so we know the stakes are life or death.
Mustafa isn’t on this journey alone, many characters come and go, but of them, there are three standouts. Rami (played by Mahmoud Abu Eita, a wonderful find), a teenager hoping to find work. Kifah (played by Motaz Malhees), a man on his way to a family wedding and with him Anne (played by Anna Unterberger) a documentary filmmaker. Mustafa is forced to use information he obtains from, or about, each of them along the journey to get across the border safely to his son. Rami who would’ve turned home after an initial scare and major setback to their crossing ends up in a hospital after they go to an “unsecured” part of the wall he knows after Mustafa lies to him with the promise of employment. Rami while older than Mustafa’s son is still very much a boy so him ending up in a hospital on this journey and Mustafa having played a role carries an emotional weight.
I doubt whatever the movie Anne was filming was going to change people’s opinions on Palestine/Israel and I don’t know if 200 Meters will either, but I think the lens in which this film focuses should lead to discussions because it shouldn’t be this hard to get to your child in need.
More than one character makes a point to mention throughout the film that because Mustafa’s wife (Salwa, played by Lana Zreik) lives in Israel he could “easily” get an Israel ID, and then his family could live there together. But there’s nothing easy about anything in Mustafa’s life but he does what he must to make it work, whether that means sneaking across the border or putting up twinkle lights for his family to see from their place across the wall, 200 meters away.
It can be seen as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival with screenings on May 19th and May 23rd
Score: B+
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.