5 Broken Cameras

Review

5 Broken Cameras is a 2011 documentary directed by Emad Burnat (Palestinian) and Guy Davidi (Israeli). The movie is mostly the views of an individual to convey the terror experienced by Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the power of nonviolent resistance. Burnat is the main man whose 5 cameras were broken in the making, with many others injured and dead.

The focal point of the movie was on the main character - Emad Burnat - though he is not seen protesting at all himself, he is always filming what’s going on. 5 Broken Cameras is one of the many commentaries on the unending terror that the people of the occupied West Bank live in. It’s filled with bullets and bombs and guns and tear gas. All of that deadly ammunition and technology coming from the Israeli and no technology at, I mean zero from the Palestinians - in the name of nonviolent resistance. It's very disheartening to see.

The first thing I applaud Emad on is the lack of fear when facing the military men with his camera, unwavering confidence in the face of possible death. He also didn’t try to do it like a vlog, he barely filmed himself unless it was the family doing something of one of the children filming, that shows it was about the people not about his personal ego. Lots of bad shots, blurry, but in this context it’s not bad, I thought it added more meaning to what really was happening, no stable ground for these poor Palestinians to peacefully protest.

A strategy I noticed but didn’t know whether to applaud it or not was the use of children to protest instead of adults. Same strategy used by civil rights activists in America here, used today by American politicians. They put kids in front, and if you mess with the kids, you're a jerk, only if people see it of course. The other side? What if people don’t see, all those kids can get wiped out.

One of the reviews upheld by IMDb as rare that rated the movie 10 out of 10 wrote heavily on how Israel is causing injustice in many forms but nothing is happening to stop them. I thought well, if you look at it, Palestinians came with their bare hands and stones, but I am guessing even if they had guns still the Israelis will beat the heck out of them because Israel seems to have technological superiority. I really have never seen any people in history get free from somebody just because they peacefully communicated that they don’t like something. If there is nothing to fear from the side of the Palestinians, what is preventing any country hungry for land, power and or resources from taking Palestine?

Yes, wonderful job done by this documentary but it doesn’t look like this is something that can fix the issue at scale at all. The destruction of one of the barriers towards the end of the film is just a way to calm these peasants as Israel crafts out a masterplan. Most people (countries) won’t do a thing for any other person purely out of empty kindness, Israel is no different, if Palestine finds a reason for Israel to be kind to them, I think Israel will listen

This documentary gets a 5 from me, because obviously how many lives on earth has such bravery to record incidents like this? Very important documentation.