Competing voices – the call of the muezzin, the bark of radio news bulletins – drift like wood smoke across the rooftops of an unspecified Middle Eastern town. We don’t know at first glance whether it is in Israel or Palestine and that’s perhaps the point. The same, but different. It’s a poetic opening for a documentary that soon settles into a more conventional approach. Through talking-head interviews, archive footage and woozy dramatic recreations, the film gives a hearing to people from both sides, unpicking their ingrained hatred and exploring the moment when they decided that enough was enough. The subjects – including a Palestinian woman who was arrested hours before she was to carry out a suicide bombing, and an elite Israeli soldier – are all members of Combatants for Peace, an organisation that promotes dialogue and non-violent solutions. But since, as one of the film’s most potent scenes demonstrates, even husbands and wives can’t agree, the film’s message of hope is tempered by depressing realities.
