First Look: Miral Review: As part of the Chicago Palestine Film Festival, filmmaker Julian Schnabel and writer Rula Jebreal were in town last night for a screening of their new film Miral. It's the kind of movie that garners buckets of senseless political backlash, a lot of it from people who have never even seen it and have no intention of doing so. Well, we saw it and found it unexpectedly moving.Based on Jebreal's autobiographical novel, the movie tells the story of Miral, born to a deeply troubled woman as the result of rape. After her mother takes her own life Miral grows up at Dar Al-Tifel Institute, an orphanage for Palestinian children in Jerusalem. Her adopted father, a kind-hearted cleric, tries to understand and support her even as she becomes a restless teenager. Awakening to the suffering of her people and not content to just wait for things to get better, her increasing political involvement begins to get her in hot water.
As in his other films, such as Before Night Falls and especially The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Schnabel focuses on giving the viewer a very subjective personal experience mirroring the journey of the characters onscreen. Vivid, almost hallucinogenic colors, tilt-shift photography, and rough handheld camerawork are used at various moments to lend palpable textures, without ever overwhelming the central story.
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