Review of Palestine 36, film directed by Annemarie Jacir, 120 mins, 2025
By Margaret Barclay
This excellent film is set in 1936 and 1937 when the British occupying forces helped to set up the Zionist State and suppressed Palestine resistance. Parallels with the situation in Palestine at present are clear.
Palestinian land is occupied by Zionists arriving from all over Europe; the settlers fence off stolen land and set up watch towers from where they shoot approaching Palestinian villagers. The British army drives away from a violent raid on an Arab village with a beaten Palestinian man tied to the front of a jeep.
A Palestinian newspaper proprietor takes bribes from Zionists to print their propaganda, while his wife, writing under a male penname, supports the resistance. Rich Arab landowners don’t care what happens to the villagers since ‘they don’t pay their taxes on time’.
A sympathetic but somewhat naïve British official arrives at the village to encourage residents to register their land, but they are suspicious and tell him that of course it’s their land, they have lived here for centuries, their people are buried here, why should they have to prove it?
The brutality of the British army is shown. It is a timely reminder of the role Britain played in the theft of Palestinian land and the suppression of their justified revolt. So many parallels with today.
Filming was interrupted several times because of the murderous Israeli attacks on Gaza and the West Bank but was eventually completed. An interview in The Guardian (see link at the end of this review) with director Jacir explains some of the problems she encountered:
‘Forced to relocate to Jordan for 13 months, [the film crew] were later able to return but found one location – an entire village that they had painstakingly restored, including planting tobacco and cotton – had been overrun by settlers. There was also a risk of actors being misidentified if seen in military fatigues or rebel outfits. “It’s a very tense situation,” [Jacir] says, “there’s no way we were going to put anybody’s life in danger.”’
Jeremy Irons, who plays the Palestine High Commissioner in the film, has spoken out against the Zionist genocide in an Instagram post. This is at odds with his character in the film.
The film reminded me in some ways of Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom, 1995, set in the Spanish Civil War at roughly the same time as the events in Palestine. No-one tries to be stand-out stars; people in the countryside in particular are believable as ‘ordinary’ people rather than actors.
After seeing this film, I reflected once more on my own father’s presence in Palestine at this period, serving in the Royal Navy, of which I only became aware recently. He was told to patrol a dock area carrying the handle of a pickaxe to beat up any attempt to steal supplies, presumably including weapons.
It was assumed the robbers would be mostly Arabs. For this he and others were awarded The Palestine Medal, which he found rather undeserved. I’m only glad he wasn’t in the army, where he might have done worse, and I would be the daughter of a war criminal. I hope I am not.
This film is a painful reminder of the role the British played in supporting the establishment of a Zionist state based on the theft of Palestinian land, and the killing of Palestinians which continues unabated to this day, aided, abetted and in practice accepted by almost all the governments I can think of.
Workers Power will return to the topic of the Palestinian revolt and general strike of 1936-39 next year. Meanwhile, for the whole of the interview with Annemarie Jacir see below:
