Mourning in Lod
(USA, 73 min.)
Dir. Hilla Medalia
Subtitles can provide a fascinating window into a complex geopolitical situation. Beyond translating dialogue for outsiders, subtitles can create narratives of their own through their word choices. Translating “vite” from French to “fast” or “quick” in English is one thing. But the delicate dance dealing with Israel-Palestine relations reveals itself in the choice of a single letter in Mourning in Lod.
This important window into the ongoing—and seemingly endless—conflict in the Middle East tells of one of the mixed cities Israel where Arabs and Jews live side by side. For 5000 years, the city was home to an exclusively Arab population. They called it Lyd. They continue to do so, although the Jewish population that settled in 1948 refers to the city as Lod. The name change happened amid the Palestinian expulsion.
In Mourning in Lod, director Hilla Medalia follows an intriguing story that connects Arab and Jewish families. They both refer to the city with the name associated with their religion, culture, and language. However, the subtitles translate “Lod” verbatim when the Jewish family names the city. When Arab characters say “Lyd,” the city’s name appears as “Lod/Lyd” in the subtitles. Make of that corrective what you will, but it’s an intriguing nugget of point of view amid a film that navigates a tightrope-wire of a situation.
The film introduces audiences to three families united by tragedy. It doesn’t quite give the complicated backstory of Lyd/Lod, but one gets a sense of the ongoing tensions as the interviews don’t position the tragedies as unique. The latest cycle of violence in the region claims the life of Musa Hassouna. His wife, Marwa, shares how a Musa was shot in cold blood. A bullet pierced his heart. There’s even a video of him falling to gunfire, which she shows to the camera and observes that no weapon falls from his hands. There is, however, a second video. It shows a man brandishing an Israeli Star of David flag in one hand and a gun in the other, which he raises and points carefully offscreen, taking aim at Musa.
Musa’s senseless death leaves his community angry. They call him a martyr and demand justice, but the violence continues its awful spell when protests turn ugly. As things escalate, they take the life of Yigal Yehoshua. A giant boulder crashes through his window as he drives his car home. He passes out while parking his car at home and never wakes up. His wife, Ira, tearfully recalls the decision to remove him from his respirator when a doctor advises her that Yigal can save lives by having his organs donated.
In a poetic twist, however, one of Yigal’s kidneys ends up in Randa Oweis. She’s a Christian Arab woman who has been suffering through dialysis for many years. The case gains some media attention. On one side, commentators praise it as a symbolic and fateful omen for peace and unity. Others call it insult to injury.
Mourning in Lod observes how these exchanges of life and death provide hope for peace, but also illustrate the fallacy of it. Medalia observes as the Oweis and Yehoshua families cautiously unite to give thanks for Yigal’s blessing, and the evidence of his mighty hearty that exists in Randa’s renewed health. But it’s not so easy for Marwa and Musa’s family, particularly his father, as they seek justice for what should be an open and shut case.
Medalia provides a snapshot that uses micro-level human dynamics to consider the past, present, and future of a violent situation, although the even-handed objectivity encounters a unique twist as a simple letter illustrates the power dynamics that define the region, including the authority of storytelling. The film acknowledges the futility of peace when citizens don’t receive equal treatment, when their lives don’t receive the same value, while co-existing in the same space. But through the human story it provides with the Yehoshua and Oweis families, it at least finds an element of hope. The families’ ability to see through divides and recognize shared humanity offers an aspirational portrait for the city, however one spells its name.