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Lemon Tree – strength and hope in a sour Middle East

Posted on 18 October, 2009 | No Comments

by Gwen Ragno

Lemon Tree is the incredibly powerful story of a woman who, despite all of the forces working against her – social, political, bureaucratic, cultural – fights to hold on to what matters to her. Salma is a Palestinian widow living on the border between Israel and the occupied West Bank. She lives alone, tending the lemon grove she inherited from her father. When the new Israeli defense minister moves in next door, the secret service decides the lemon grove is a security threat and wants to cut it down. Everyone Salma goes to for help belittles her situation, saying that other people have “real problems.” She finally hires a lawyer and they take the case all the way to the Israeli supreme court. The case becomes symbolic of the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it is driven by this one woman who refuses to give up.

The film is based on the true story of an 80-year-old Palestinian woman and her olive grove. In reality, however, the Israeli courts refused to even hear the case. The writer, Suha Arraf, said that she wanted the film to be lighter than the reality so it could contain some hope. She changed the olives to lemons to symbolize the sourness of life in Palestine. Salma always serves lemonade to her guests though, adding sugar to the lemons’ juice to make it bearable to drink. The sugar of Arraf’s screenplay was the occasional comic relief, like shots of a glowering photo of Salma’s husband every time she had a male guest, and the ridiculous language tutorial the young Israeli sentinel continuously listened to. Arraf softened the situation to make it believable, but still managed to keep it a very moving story.

After the film, Palestinian artist and writer Ibtisam Barakat read aloud a note from the writer Suha Arraf about the writing of the film and how it relates to the reality of the situation in the Middle East. Then she invited two Israeli filmmakers, Shira Derman ($9.99) and Nirit Peled (Say My Name) and a Native American thespian, Marcie Rendon, up for a discussion. Instead of talking about the things that divide us, Barakat said, let’s talk about the things that can bring us together. These women may come from different sides of a very long and very bloody conflict, but they are all strong, passionate women who have overcome cultural limitations to find their voices, and filmmakers who use their art to make those voices heard. It was clearly a very difficult, emotional conversation for all of them, and it probably could have gone on all night if the next film hadn’t cut it short.

One idea that the women discussed was how, as Nirit Peled brought up, women in conflict areas are even more suppressed and isolated than they were already by heavily patriarchal societies. In the film, Salma had all the courage in the world, but no influence or resources whatsoever. Mira, the defense minister’s wife, was on her side and had a lot more power and influence, but was still held back from action– whether she was held back by the patriarchal bureaucratic structure or simply by her lack of courage is still up for debate.

What everyone agreed on was that there needs to be empathy and humanity on both sides in order to create a real conversation and begin understanding each other, and that films like Lemon Tree are the only way to do that. The news is too shallow and easy to misinterpret, they said, but art can reach much deeper to the heart of the issue and humanize the pain on both sides. Peled said, “If it were up to the women, there would have been peace a long time ago.”

More info about Lemon Tree and a trailer on the film’s official website.

Check out what’s going on for the final day of Citizen Jane Film Fest.