MOHAMMED ALKHALDI AND VANDO VILLAMIL IN GOD'S SLAVE

Method and madness surrounding terrorism against Jews in 1990's Argentina

God's Slave is the first feature of Argentinian director Joel Novoa, the son of producer-director José Ramón Novoa and filmmaker-theater director Elia Schneider. The script is by Uruguayan novelist and short story writer Fernando Butazzoni, who previously worked on the script of A Far Off Place (2009). Based on actual events, it begins with long parallel passages profiling two men on opposite sides of a long, bitter war. Tensely and methodically, Novoa follows an Arab terrorist long under cover and a Mossad agent in Buenos Aires. Just past half way through the movie, the film achieves a dramatic coup: it brings the two men together. David Goldman (TV vet Vando Villamil), following a tip, spots Admed Al Hassamah (strong newcomer Mohammed Alkhaldi) on a dark Buenos Aires street. Ahmed, following orders, has come here from Caracas, where he has been living as a kind of "mole" for years. He is a surgeon in a hospital there and has a wife who adores him and a charming little boy. Tonight his dawr, his "turn," has come. (Members of the little cell he's temporarily living with for some reason speak French as well as Arabic to each other. They are all devout Muslims dedicated to becoming martyrs.) On the next day he's supposed to blow himself up. Breaking the rules, he has just slipped away from the cell, pretending he's going to the mosque to pray, but in fact he has had doubts.

Since this is a movie about an Arab doctor and a suicide bombing, it invites comparison to Ziyad Doueri's The Attack (SFJFF 2013). But in The Attack, the award winning Palestinian surgeon works in Israel, and is startled to learn about a suicide bombing probably carried out by his wife. He comes to understand why a Palestinian could become a suicide bomber, but his wife is now a stranger to him, and he does not accept the validity of such actions. In God's Slave, we're confronted even more starkly with the enigma of a successful person with a good life who, because of an old wrong, would wait for years to give his life to kill others.

Goldman and Al Hassouna both have a bloody wrong in their past that motivates them. In the opening vignette little Al Hassouna as a boy in Lebanon sees his father and mother killed by Israeli agents (though his father was suspected of cooperating with the Jews). Goldman, we learn later, was radicalized and joined the Mossad when he witnessed his brother's assassination in Israel. Both are devout and both have wives and children. Both have left their native lands to live in Latin America bringing their passions and resentments with them into their new lives.

A series of suicide bombing assaults on the large Argentinian Jewish community has been taking place. It's 1994. The day before this exciting encounter, the terrorist cell has achieved it's biggest coup. Their martyr has killed 84 people. This is a particular blow for Goldman, who has been responsible for preventing further such events. He is told he is to be transferred, and is desperate this night to accomplish something, to redeem himself in some way in the little time before he's withdrawn.

The film's achievement is to build up a convincing background around both opposed protagonists while maintaining a strong forward thrust. Vanno Villamil has a sullen, angry intensity as Goldman. Alkhaldi has good looks and panache. He could be both a terrorist and a surgeon. He doesn't seem particularly Lebanese, so it's no surprise to learn his background is Kuweiti/ He makes a striking presence; but that beard he wears, doesn't it mark him as a Muslim fundamentalist a mile off? It's hard to say as some do that Novoa and Butazzoni maintain an even non-judgmental view of the two protagonists. By choice they are different, Ahmed the aggressor, Goldman the protector -- though he too, kills. But what you can say is we get an equally good look at both. The movie presents convincing atmosphere and linguistic authenticity, including the Lebanese prologue, the terrorist meet-ups in various Arabic accents, the Spanish-language family scenes, the Mossad dealings in Hebrew.

As Fernando Lopez points out in a review in La Nación , the filmmaker was educated at the University of California, and he is only 27, but has a lot of experience in film, especially as an assistant director with his father; and this film is obviously the work of an excellent team.

God's Slave/Esclavo de Dios, 90 mins, debuted in June 2013 in the Venezuelan Film Festival, also playing in Uraguay, Mar del Plata, and Santa Barbara. Watched for this review on a screener as part of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (July 24-August 10, 2014), where it plays Aug. 1 (Castro, San Francisco), Aug. 8 (Grand Lake, Oakland), Aug. 9 (San Rafael Film Center).

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.