Lullaby (documentary)
Encyclopedia
Lullaby is a documentary film
by Adi Arbel that interviews both Palestinian
and Israel
i mothers whose children have been killed as a result of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
i and Palestinian
children have been killed since the start of the Second Intifada in 2000. Lullaby tells the story of those grieving mothers in their own words.
“My daughter was born on the day the Intifada set off. When she turned 6 months old
an Israeli baby was shot in the head; a month later a Palestinian baby was shot. This for me was intolerable,” says filmmaker Adi Arbel of her inspiration for making the film.
In the film, eleven women describe their children’s deaths in this horrible conflict. Their own struggles to cope with their personal tragedies show candor, emotion, and at times even a sense of humor. Transmitted throughout the film are penetrating revelations about motherhood, the gruesomeness of armed conflict, and the burden of bearing witness in the most tragic way possible.
These eleven women come from varied backgrounds: Palestinians, Israelis, a Russia
n immigrant, and an American
Christian
living in Israel. The stories of their children’s deaths are chilling, sometimes shared in explicit detail, and through these stories the viewer comes to understand a common thread among them.
For some of the mothers, their tragedy is seeing their child brutally killed before their eyes; for others, their tragedy is not having been there to witness their child’s last moments. A baby-faced Palestinian mother is as traumatized by having found her infant daughter’s body ripped open by IDF gunfire as an older Israeli grandmother is by not knowing what happened to her daughter and two of her four grandchildren in their last moments. “The neighbor told me she screamed ‘Mommy’ as hard as she could,” cries the grandmother in the film, “and I’m just trying to imagine, to put pieces together to know what happened to my daughter in that moment…and I can’t solve this mystery.”
Their children’s deaths serve for all the mothers as a challenge to their motherhood, as they find themselves tortured by their inability to do what they feel is a mother’s primary responsibility: to protect her children. “She is so small and helpless and you are everything for her because without you she couldn’t live…and all of a sudden, in this attack, you are there for her, but you can’t do anything. Nothing,” relates a secular Israeli. “Forgive me son, I could not help you when you called out to me, I was under debris,” a Palestinian mother recalls pleading to her son as she held him for the last time.
But overwhelmingly, the greatest pain these mothers share is in missing the presence of their children. They all have that same wonder of what sort of adults their children would have become, and describe being haunted by their memories of their children.
Finally, they share the necessary struggle of moving on, and of being complete parents to their remaining children. As the young Palestinian mother asks, “Tomorrow, when my children grow up, how are they to see me like this? I am supposed to instill courage in them. They shouldn’t be scared of anything. But I myself am scared, I am terrorized.”
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
by Adi Arbel that interviews both Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
and Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i mothers whose children have been killed as a result of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Summary
Over 150 IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i and Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
children have been killed since the start of the Second Intifada in 2000. Lullaby tells the story of those grieving mothers in their own words.
“My daughter was born on the day the Intifada set off. When she turned 6 months old
an Israeli baby was shot in the head; a month later a Palestinian baby was shot. This for me was intolerable,” says filmmaker Adi Arbel of her inspiration for making the film.
In the film, eleven women describe their children’s deaths in this horrible conflict. Their own struggles to cope with their personal tragedies show candor, emotion, and at times even a sense of humor. Transmitted throughout the film are penetrating revelations about motherhood, the gruesomeness of armed conflict, and the burden of bearing witness in the most tragic way possible.
These eleven women come from varied backgrounds: Palestinians, Israelis, a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n immigrant, and an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
living in Israel. The stories of their children’s deaths are chilling, sometimes shared in explicit detail, and through these stories the viewer comes to understand a common thread among them.
For some of the mothers, their tragedy is seeing their child brutally killed before their eyes; for others, their tragedy is not having been there to witness their child’s last moments. A baby-faced Palestinian mother is as traumatized by having found her infant daughter’s body ripped open by IDF gunfire as an older Israeli grandmother is by not knowing what happened to her daughter and two of her four grandchildren in their last moments. “The neighbor told me she screamed ‘Mommy’ as hard as she could,” cries the grandmother in the film, “and I’m just trying to imagine, to put pieces together to know what happened to my daughter in that moment…and I can’t solve this mystery.”
Their children’s deaths serve for all the mothers as a challenge to their motherhood, as they find themselves tortured by their inability to do what they feel is a mother’s primary responsibility: to protect her children. “She is so small and helpless and you are everything for her because without you she couldn’t live…and all of a sudden, in this attack, you are there for her, but you can’t do anything. Nothing,” relates a secular Israeli. “Forgive me son, I could not help you when you called out to me, I was under debris,” a Palestinian mother recalls pleading to her son as she held him for the last time.
But overwhelmingly, the greatest pain these mothers share is in missing the presence of their children. They all have that same wonder of what sort of adults their children would have become, and describe being haunted by their memories of their children.
Finally, they share the necessary struggle of moving on, and of being complete parents to their remaining children. As the young Palestinian mother asks, “Tomorrow, when my children grow up, how are they to see me like this? I am supposed to instill courage in them. They shouldn’t be scared of anything. But I myself am scared, I am terrorized.”
See also
Other documentaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:- The Land of the SettlersThe Land of the SettlersThe Land of the Settlers is a five part documentary series created by Chaim Yavin, who was described by the Arab News as "the Israeli version of America’s Walter Cronkite". With a handheld camera, Yavin traveled throughout his homeland of Israel and interviewed a range of Palestinians and Israelis...
- At the Green LineAt the Green LineAt the Green Line is a 2005 documentary made by Jesse Atlas that profiles several members of Courage to Refuse, a political group that refuses service in the Israeli military, as well as several Israelis serving in the military as part of their reserve duty...