With just two talking-head interviews, Nadav Schirman’s gripping and intimate documentary recounts Mosab Hassan Yousef’s extraordinary double-life as the son of a Hamas radical who turned informer for Israel’s shadowy Shin Bet. Accepting from the outset that his actions would be interpreted as an unforgivable betrayal (someone who “raped their own mother” would seem less shameful, says Yousef), our edgily eloquent subject explains how he supplied information both to prevent terrorist attacks and also to protect his father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef. Meanwhile, former Shin Bet agent Gonen Ben Yitzhak describes the bond of trust that grew between him and Yousef – a bond that saw the informant’s “handler” turned upon by his own organisation, leaving both men out in the cold. It’s a remarkable story, told with slick thriller flair, focusing increasingly on the interdependence of its subjects, who chose personal morality over political rhetoric, with isolating results. In the process, the film deliberately sidesteps the wider issues unearthed so alarmingly in Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers, a film that offers intriguing context to this very personal tale of trial and salvation.
