Post-Trauma and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict through the Lens of the Films Atash and Year Zero

Can films bridge between worldviews? Can they ease an unbearable reality? Do they operate within it and influence it, or do they merely provide a perspective from the outside, from which something can be learned or to which one can briefly escape? Can the side-by-side analysis of an Israeli film and a Palestinian film elucidate a catastrophic reality that, with all of its potential explanations and interpretations, we have almost given up trying to understand? Can it be of any help in reaching a solution? This article is an attempt to grapple with these questions and offers a possible answer by analyzing the films Atash by Tawfik Abu Wael and Year Zero by Yosef Pitchhadze. Both films were created here, in Israel-Palestine, during the days of the Second Intifada and were released in 2004. They are complex and layered films that do not lend themselves easily to analysis, and it is difficult at first glance to identify the connections between them. This ambiguity, this mystery, draw the analytical gaze that seeks to explore what lies beneath the visible surface. Uncertainty and restless curiosity are my starting points in this article.