Dir: Ameen Nayfeh
From whichever side we're ultimately looking at it, we tend to see the Middle East purely as a war zone, which is why it is refreshing to encounter films like 200 Meters. The politics of the region is embedded in both its title and its story, which begins as a family drama about Mustafa (Ali Suliman), who lives in the West Bank, divided by the titular distance and by the wall from his wife Salwa (Lana Zriek) and their three small children who, though they visit, live most of the time in Israel. When, after he has lost the work permit that allows him to cross the border for the day, Mustafa's son is injured, he attempts to find a way to smuggle himself across so he can visit the hospital.
The first half hour of the film is very much about everyday life in the West Bank and Israel, Mustafa dealing with only seeing Salwa and his kids occasionally, and trying to find what is often taxing work across the border despite his bad back. Things clearly aren't perfect between Mustafa and Salwa, as we see them disagree about his health and his not applying for a residence permit in Israel, and it might be enlightening to see that dug into a bit more. However, most of the family scenes are lighter, though mixed in with a sense of how tough the grind of life is, even without invoking the spectre of the conflict in the area with anything more than the very presence of the wall and the checkpoints. The events are somewhat mundane, but they knit together into a compelling picture of a family separated by circumstance and establish a sweet running visual in the lights that Mustafa uses to signal goodnight to his kids across the wall.
The film's last hour shifts gears, becoming a thriller about getting Mustafa and several fellow travellers, notably German filmmaker Anne (Anna Unterberger), through the checkpoints and the border and into Israel. When things go wrong they lose their driver and things shift again into a road movie full of simmering tension both between the characters and about how they are all going to be able to make it over the border. Politics is largely kept as a background hum, but there are tensions that reveal themselves, especially between Anne and her camera operator boyfriend. The thriller elements here feel credible, both in the dangers that are presented and the solutions that are found (one even manages to be amusing in its simplicity, given the tension built up).
This is only added to by the strong performances all round and the developing camaraderie between characters who are initially almost literally thrown together, most of them crammed in the boot of a car. Everyone is good, but it is Ali Suliman's beautifully modulated performance, expressing all the joy of being among his family, the strain of times without them, and the growing worry and often impatience of a parent who needs to see his kid in the hospital, that carries the film.
200 Meters is trying to do a lot of things, and in his first feature, director Ameen Nayfeh draws his elements together well. In taking a long section of the film to cross what initially sounds like a short distance he builds in a metaphor about the difficulty of bridging that gap without having the characters make speeches about the region's politics, and he shows the effects of the conflict without dwelling in its violence and living into the cliches of how the region is depicted. It's an accomplished debut from a filmmaker worth watching.
★★★★
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