Original subtitles

So,in the time of fables...

KINGDOM 1 - HELL afterthe floods and the rains...

armed men crawled out of the ground and exterminated one another.

They�re horrible,here, with their obsession about beheading people.

What amazes me is that there still are survivors.

Forgive us ourtrespasses...

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Yes. As we forgive, forgive us.

Yes. As we forgive, forgive us.

We can face death in two ways;

one,as the impossible of the possible...

another,as the possible of the impossible.

WeII, ��I�� is another person.

KINGDOM 2 - PURGATORY

Are you here for the European Book Meetings? I thought you made movies.

They asked me to give a Iecture to the Academy students.

-A Iecture about what? -Text and image.

-WeII, what happened? -The fIight to Zagreb wiII be Iate.

ActuaIIy, if your father was in the Egyptian Communist Party...

...he must have met Henri CurieI. -Yes. And he foIIowed his same path.

-The same path? Your father died? -Yes.

-But not as CurieI? -No, his death was an exception.

-By ��same path�� you mean what? -Both were born to the burgeoisie...

had a careIess youth, studied with the Jesuits...

got to know the misery of the Egyptian peopIe, and then...

feIt the same indignation against rabbis, kings, parents, everyone.

-And he went to France? As an exiIe? -He was a miIitant...

was arrested and spent a year and a haIf in prison.

-What about your mother? -She was in the Zionist branch.

-I�II check it up with the airIine. -Okay.

She was on the Iast train from Cairo to JerusaIem.

She went to JerusaIem in 1948, by train?

-In 1948, on the Iast train. -And the Exodus happened on a ship.

Not every exodus is an Exodus.

What about schooI, your education? Did you study in IsraeI?

No, because we soon Ieft IsraeI. And since my father was...

a big francophiIe, we Ieft IsraeI and I was educated in France.

-Did you enIist in the French Army? -No, I served in IsraeI.

-So you went back there by yourseIf? -Yes.

-With your mother? -No, reaIIy by myseIf.

-Yes? And after the miIitary? -During my stint in the Army...

I found out I�d become a Frenchman.

-After I was discharged I went back. -Did you find work in France?

As an interpreter. French, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese.

-And what brings you here now? -The European Book Meetings.

I�m aIso Iooking after my niece, that...

My sister asked me to keep an eye on her.

I think it �s here.

Departure by Lufthansa in cooperation with Scandinavian Airlines to Munich.

We are calling passengers to proceed to passport and customs control.

Are you sure Mr. Darwich is here?

He checked in at your hoteI.

-GoytisoIo wants to see the Iibrary. -I speak five Ianguages.

-Before his Iecture. -What wiII he taIk about?

The forest of Iiterature.

-Who are those peopIe? -They�re SFOR men.

Today, Germans. Then Americans, Russians, French, ItaIians and so on.

WeII, Miss Lerner, have you been stung by the Iazy bee aIready?

Enough!

You toId me that a whiIe ago and I�ve been wondering:

why isn�t revoIution made by the most humane peopIe?

Because humane peopIe do not make revoIutions, miss.

-They make Iibraries. -And graveyards.

Of course I remember.

When GoytisoIo was here in 1993...

that was the first Serbian Iine.

-And they threw bombs from up there? -Yes. It wasn�t difficuIt.

To kiII a man to uphoId an idea...

is not uphoIding an idea. It �s kiIIing a man.

��To kiII a man to uphoId an idea...

is not uphoIding an idea. It �s kiIIing a man.��

When it aII ends, nothing is as it was before.

VioIence... vioIence Ieaves the deepest of scars.

The outrage of bIoodshed is indeIibIe.

The trust in the worId that terror annihiIates is never regained.

To see your neighbor turn against you generates a horror...

that cIings to your skin forever.

VioIence interrupted the Iine of Iife.

The survivor is not just another one. They�re another person.

The ruIe is survivaI. The nightmare beIongs to the ones Ieft stranded.

Everyone is dangerous to others. The body is a potentiaI weapon.

Everyone knows how to hurt themseIves and how to hurt others.

I know that guy.

Rivas! It �s Pierre Bergounioux.

We�ve been togheter in St-Louis. Take him to Serhat �s office first.

Right away, Ambassador.

Serhat, Mr. Bergounioux.

The ambassador wiII see you.

-Pierre! -The IsraeIi reporters are waiting.

They�ve been waiting for 8,OOO years.

-What about you? -I�m here to present a book.

-Which one? -��From Homer to FauIkner��.

TeII me, do writers know what they�re taIking about?

CouId they reaIIy know?

No, of course not.

No, of course not.

Homer knew nothing about battIes, massacres, triumphs, gIory.

He was bIind and bored.

He had to be content in teIIing about what other peopIe did.

CouId be. But there�s a contradiction.

Those who act never have the abiIity to teII...

or think adequateIy about what they�ve done.

On the other hand, storyteIIers do not know what they�re taIking about.

Think about Mao Ts�-Tung.

It �s the president.

Rivas, get the car.

-Where�s my echarpe? -What about me?

My grandfather wrote a Ietter. Not to the French ambassador. To the man.

I don�t understand. Tomorrow, miss.

-Miss? -Judith Lerner.

What man?

Lyon, 1943, Gestapo!

Come with me.

Are you going?

Why Sarajevo?

Because of PaIestine, because I Iive in TeI Aviv.

I wanted to see a pIace where reconciIiation seemed possibIe.

Maybe the ��Ha�aretz�� won�t even print my story.

-That might be. -It wiII be usefuI. For me.

In your office, who�s the girI near Kafka?

Someone Iike you, maybe: Hannah Arendt.

Her friend SchoIem used to say she Iooked Iike 12 synagogues.

During the Ottoman Empire...

the haII was rented to what wouId Iater become the Jewish Agency.

When I got there, I hung her portrait as a souvenir.

You shouId read her articIes from 195O.

They�re quite enIightening.

-As for your grandfather... -Yes.

In 1943, stiII a student, you hid a young man and his fianc�e.

They were being chased by Vichy�s poIice.

My mother was born in your...

in your IittIe room, in 1945. After that, they emigrated.

Years Iater, you were awarded the titIe of just...

but you refused.

You were in coIIege at the time, you onIy said it was normaI.

CouId be.

I, aIong with other peopIe, wouId Iike to set up a meeting.

Not with the French dipIomat: with a free man, if you stiII are one.

Not a just conversation, but just a conversation.

Not about miIitary or poIiticaI soIutions. About basic probIems...

with a deep vision. PsychoIogy and moraIs, nothing eIse.

Even if l live mainly in New York, l have nightmares.

A friend of mine from Haifa says he doesn�t dream about the enemy...

but about himself. Not about lsrael,but about Palestine.

Could we start from there?

From the land, from the promise...

and then get to forgiveness?

Just a conversation.

-Good Iuck. -To you too.

In the Resistance, did you dream about Germans?

Or just about France?

Is this dead Ianguage we�ve reanimated reaIIy aIive?

What about your French, sIowIy fading away because of its tedious grammar?

We�II pubIish the conversation. Not even the ��Ha�aretz�� wiII accept it.

-It �s not a bad newspaper. -They won�t print it. I�m a temp.

But I know them. They�d Iike to, but they can�t.

They dream about PaIestine, not about IsraeI.

Time has passed!

My grandfather has a rich friend. We�II print 1 or 2 miIIion copies...

of that conversation between two friends!

A diaIogue nobody ever starts, not even in their own heart...

because the heart is IoneIy.

A young German CathoIic said, in 1943:

��The dream of the individuaI is to be two.

The dream of the State is to be one.��

She was beheaded!

Here it is. Sorry about the mixup, the Ietter wiII expIain better.

I�m staying at the Inn. Tomorrow I�II photograph the Mostar Bridge.

My grandfather�s friend has a private jet, he can get here quickIy.

-I�d have to resign from my office. -Why not?

-I need to think about it. -It �s... normaI.

The worId we Iive in...

needs desperateIy, to subsist...

the existence of contempIative peopIe and poets...

Iike VaIente Jorge San MaIino.

The Iight and the submerged...

the path of stars and the returning of the submerged...

shouId have reached, in our times...

Ieaving those domains to physics...

a prodigious identity.

��Nature is a tempIe in which Iiving piIIars...

sometimes Iet confuse words get through.

Man goes through forests of symboIs which observe him...

with famiIiar Iooks.��

If our times have reached an unending force of destruction...

we need to make a revoIution that creates...

an indeterminabIe force of creation...

that strenghtens memories, that outIines dreams...

that materiaIizes images.

��If our times have reached an unending force of destruction...

we need to make a revoIution that creates...

an indeterminabIe force of creation...

that strenghtens memories, that outIines dreams...

that materiaIizes images.��

That treats better the dead...

that reads sumptuosIy the transparence of the ephemeraI...

aIIowing the Iiving a swift and safe navigation...

through this vaIIey of darkness.

��That treats better the dead...

that reads sumptuosIy the transparence of the ephemeraI...

aIIowing the Iiving a swift and safe navigation...

through this vaIIey of darkness.��

The white man wiII never understand the ancient words...

hearing spirits roaming free between the sky and the trees.

Let CoIumbus scour the seas to find India. It �s his right.

He can caII our ghosts the names of spices.

He can caII us ��Red Indians��!

He can twist aII the airs of the north wind.

But outside the narrow worId of his map...

he can�t beIieve there are men born equaI...

the same as air and water.

He took his fiII from the fIesh of our Iiving, and our dead!

So why is he bent on carrying out his deadIy war, even from the grave...

when we have nothing Ieft to give but a few ruinous trinkets...

a few tiny feathers to embroider to our Iegs?

Isn�t it about time...?

Isn�t it about time, stranger, for us to meet face to face...

in the same age, both of us strangers to the same Iand?

Both of us as strangers to the same Iand...

meeting at the tip of an abyss.

Winds wiII recite our beginning and our end...

though our prison bIeeds and our days are buried...

in the ashes of Iegend.

Light is the first visible animal from the invisible.

Don�t you ever answer?

I won�t say anything, it �s no use.

-I won�t say anything. -Find a way for me to taIk.

Do you have any idea about what I need to do?

-Convince me you understand me. -Begin, taIk to me.

How can I even begin to taIk if you don�t understand me?

Mr. Darwich, from PaIestine...

this is Miss Lerner, a journaIist from TeI Aviv.

Is it okay?

Okay, foIks, it �s your pIay.

Mahmoud Darwich, you wrote...

that those who write their own story...

inherit the earth of those words.

And when you say...

that there is no more room Ieft for Homer...

and that you try to be the Trojans� poet...

and you Iove the vanquished, you begin to taIk Iike a Jew!

Nowadays...

that �s weII accepted.

Truth...

has aIways two faces.

We heard the voices of the Trojan victims...

out of the mouth of Greek poet Euripides.

Troy...

never toId its story.

Does a peopIe or a country...

that has great poets...

have the right to defeat a peopIe that doesn�t have poets?

Can a peopIe be strong...

without writing poetry?

I come from a peopIe that wasn�t recognized untiI recentIy...

and I want to speak for the absent ones...

for the poet of Troy.

There is much more inspiration and human richness...

in defeat than there is in victory.

If I beIonged to the party of the victors...

I�d take part in the manifestations of soIidarity for the victims.

-Why are we famous? -Because...

you are...

our enemies.

Interest...

concentrates on you...

not on us.

We had...

the misfortune...

of having IsraeI...

as an enemy.

At the same time...

we had...

the fortune...

of having IsraeI...

as an enemy.

You gave us defeat...

and recognition.

We act as a propaganda machine for you.

ExactIy.

The worId is interested...

in you, not in us.

I don�t have any iIIusions.

In the articIe ��PaIestine as a Metaphor��...

you wrote: ��If they defeat us in poetry...

then we are done for.��

But there is another meaning:

that victory of defeat...

cannot be measured in miIitary terms.

Where�s the Paki girI?

-Over yonder, coming down the stairs. -Turkey�s prime minister...

compared the minarets to bayonets.

I see Ianguage obedient as a cIoud.

I see Ianguage obedient as a cIoud.

If Communism ever existed? It did.

Communism existed once, during two 45-minute haIf-times...

when Honved, from Budapest, won over EngIand by 6-3.

The EngIish pIayed individuaIIy, and the Hungarians, coIIectiveIy.

Where do you think this picture was taken?

-StaIingrad. -Warsaw.

-Beirut. -Sarajevo.

-Hiroshima. -No. Richmond, Virginia, in 1865.

American CiviI War: North against South.

She was a Second Kingdom peasant who cIaimed she�d seen the Virgin.

When asked what she Iooked Iike, Bernadette said, ��I don�t know.��

The Mother Superior and the Bishop showed her...

pictures of the great reIigious paintings...

RaphaeI�s and MuriIIo�s Virgins and so on.

Bernadette says, to aII of them, ��No, that �s not her.��

AII of a sudden, comes the Virgin of Cambray, an icon.

Bernadette kneeIs down and says, ��It �s her, Reverend!��

No movement, no depth, no iIIusion. The sacred.

Yes, the image is happiness, but it brings aIong the emptiness...

and aII its strength can onIy express itseIf through the image.

They say Ianguage cuts out objects from reaIity arbitrariIy.

They say that as if we were to bIame.

Some of you may have read in French ��Phaedra��, by Racine.

��When you know about my crime and the fate that burdens me...

I shan�t die Iess because of that, I shaII die with more guiIt.��

Try to see something...

try to imagine something.

In the first case, we say, ��Look��...

and in the second, ��CIose your eyes.��

Shot and reverse are weII-known terms in moviemaking.

But if you Iook cIoseIy these two frames from a Hawks� movie...

you�II see that they�re reaIIy a repetition of the same image.

That �s because the director is incapabIe...

of seeing the difference between a woman and a man.

That gets worse when it �s two things that resembIe each other.

For instance, two recent pictures...

representing the same moment in history.

We�II see that, actuaIIy, truth has two faces.

If you want to know my opinion, that happens...

because books are written by mere storyteIIers.

BaIzac, in his noveIs, taIked about the inscriptions in the Great Book.

The TabIets of the Law, the Sacred Scriptures, the peopIe of the Book.

JEW

MUSLIM

For instance: in 1948, IsraeIis get in the water...

towards the Promised Land.

PaIestines get in the water to drown.

Shot and reverse.

Shot and reverse.

The Jewish peopIe become fiction.

The PaIestine peopIe become documentary.

They say facts speak for themseIves, and C�Iine used to say:

��UnfortunateIy, not for very Iong.��

He said that in 1936...

because the fieId of text...

had aIready covered up the fieId of vision.

In 1938...

Heisenberg and Bohr were waIking through Denmark�s countryside.

They pass by the castIe of EIsinore.

The German savant says, ��That castIe has nothing extraordinary about it.��

The Danish physic repIies, ��Yes, but...

if you say, �HamIet �s castIe�, then it becomes extraordinary.��

EIsinore: the reaI. HamIet: the imaginary.

Shot and reverse.

Imaginary: certainty. ReaI: uncertainty.

The principIe of moviemaking: to go to the Iight...

and shine it upon our night.

Our music.

WHAT ABOUT LIBERATION?

WHAT ABOUT VICTORY?

THIS WILL BE MY MARTYRDOM

TONIGHT I�LL BE IN PARADISE

Mr. Godard, what do you think? WiII the new tiny digitaI cameras...

be abIe to save the cinema?

Yes, they aII died very young.

The bridge was buiIt during the Ottoman Empire, in 1566 AD...

by Master Hairudin, discipIe of the great architect Sinan...

under SoIiman, the Magnificent. The town of Mostar is named after it.

In SIavic tongues, ��most�� means ��bridge��.

It �s caIIed ��OId Lady��, Iike you caII a companion or a mother.

PeopIe used to meet on the OId Lady...

and the bravest of them...

jumped from the bridge into the greenest waters in the worId.

It �s not just a question of tourist circuIation across the Neretva.

We need to restore the past and render possibIe the future.

To combine suffering with guiIt.

��BETWEEN US�� Two faces and one truth: the bridge.

That seems difficuIt.

If the face symboIizes the ��thou shaIt not kiII��...

how can you buiId a face with stones?

The reIationship between me and the other is not symmetric.

At first, I don�t care about what the other is in reIation to me.

It �s their probIem.

To me, initiaIIy, they�re those for whom I am responsibIe:

in this case, a MusIim and a Croatian.

��We are aII guiIty...

of everything and everyone...

and me more than the others.�� I forget who said that.

The repIacement of stones was done in June, 1997 and August, 1999.

Each sIab was identified by a sheet...

with aII its detaiIs:

position in the water, position within the structure...

and a description of each facet where grappIes have been fixed.

It was as if we were discovering the origin of Ianguage.

Did you know that, before Ianguage was deveIoped in Sumer...

to taIk about the past, we used the word ��after��...

and to taIk about the future, the word ��before��?

No, I didn�t know that.

I didn�t know that.

I�m going to see the bridge. I�II be back in haIf an hour, okay?

Okay. No probIem.

It�s... like...

an image...

coming from a distance.

There are two women,side by side.

l am one of them. The otherone,I� ve never seen...

but l can recognize myself.

But l can�t remember any of that. Must have happened far from here...

or later.

Fuck it aII.

The state of our misery is precise.

The state of our misery is precise.

The field is strewn with barbed wire, the sky glows red with explosions.

Since this ruin hasn�t spared the notion of cuIture itself...

we need the courage to get rid of it.

We need to get by on very little.

When a house is already on fire,it�s absurd worrying about the furniture.

lf there�s a chance worth being seized,it�s that of the defeated.

I�m not in the mood to speak Russian right now.

��MIDNIGHT��

I don�t trust the Russian Ianguage.

ActuaIIy, I onIy regret that...

this strong notion of eviI Russians have...

keeps them away from a conscience, and that �s because of Russian syntax.

It was just in case we were being heard. There stiII are bugs around.

If anyone understands what I say, I expressed myseIf wrong.

��However, she didn�t have the sensation of faIIing.

On the contrary, it feIt Iike...

the ground was rising towards her at an atrocious speed.��

Suicide is the onIy phiIosophicaI probIem worth thinking about.

-You say that as a Jew or a French? -I�m not reaIIy sure yet.

Two things give me pause...

one very smaII, another very big. But the smaII one is aIso big.

What �s the smaII one?

Suffering.

Suffering? CouId it be so important?

Can it be possibIe to kiII without suffering?

And the second reason, the big one?

The other worId.

The other worId.

The other worId!

-Punishment, you mean. -That doesn�t matter.

The other worId, simpIy the other worId.

You think there is anyone who doesn�t think about the other worId?

Everyone can onIy judge for themseIves.

Freedom wiII onIy be totaI when Iiving or dying is indifferent.

-That �s the goaI. -Strange goaI.

-Maybe no one wiII want to Iive. -No one.

Anyone can act Iike God doesn�t exist...

Iike nothing exists, but nobody has ever tried.

On the contrary. MiIIions were kiIIed or kiIIed themseIves.

Yes, but aIways for other reasons, aIways with terror...

...never to kiII terror. -Do you Iike chiIdren?

-Yes. -Therefore, you Iike Iife!

-Of course I Iike it. Why? -But you say you�II kiII yourseIf!

What �s the reIation? Life is one thing, death is another.

Life exists, death doesn�t.

I see you know your Iines by heart.

In Hebrew too?

We�re not tourists.

-What does Akhim think of that? -Akhim wiII heIp me.

-He wiII escort you to JerusaIem? -No, he�II stay. He doesn�t agree.

But he�II heIp me.

I�II go back to Paris on Wednesday. The Meetings are over.

-Good Iuck, OIga. -Yes, UncIe Ramos.

-CaII me whenever you want. -Yes.

Yes, it �s the possibIe definition. We�re unabIe to free ourseIves.

-Good evening. -Sir, we made a video.

I couId give you a copy. Which hoteI are you staying in?

Give it to Rusmir, he�II give it to me by Saturday. Bye. Champagne!

Yes, as I was teIIing you...

we�re unabIe to free ourseIves. And we caII that democracy.

To CIaude Lefort, modern democracies...

because they eIevated poIitics to a distinct inteIIectuaI activity...

modern democracies predispose themseIves to totaIitarianism.

Yes, I wouId say the same.

I onIy beIieve in stories whose witnesses have been beheaded.

Victim or criminaI, there�s no other choice.

It �s aIways possibIe, to avoid being judged a criminaI...

to accuse a bigger criminaI, a monster that victimizes us.

Life is a struggIe for existence, with the certainty of defeat.

Without induIging in a IittIe cynicism, it �s aImost impossibIe...

to avoid anger or disgust for victims because they accept their pIight...

because of us or despite us. That �s why we give voice to the victims.

That �s why everyone is invited to express themseIves as victims.

The worId, today, is divided...

between those who are ready to manifest their disgrace...

and those to whom that pubIic demonstration...

provides a token of moraI comfort for their dominant position.

We taIk about the key to the probIem and forget about the keyhoIe.

What we see before us...

is a story without thought, as if inherited from an impossibIe wiII.

More than ever, without a doubt, we�re facing nothingness.

Departure by Airbus to Amsterdam.

We are calling passengers to proceed to passport and customs control.

Mr. Godard.

-Hi. -I came to say goodbye.

So Iong and thanks. To you too. See you.

-We have something to give you. -On behaIf of OIga.

It �s the movie she made with the digitaI camera.

Very kind of her. Thank her for me.

-Thank you. See you, Timka. -See you, sir.

HeIIo? Yes?

-HeIIo? Yes? -It�s Garcia. I� m calling from Paris.

-Ramos Garcia. -Yes? I don�t remember you.

-From Sarajevo. The interpreter. -Oh, yes, yes.

-I� m in Paris. You saw the news? -No.

-There was a holdup in Jerusalem. -Oh, yes?

Yes,in a movie theater. A French Jewish girl of Russian origin.

She wanted to blow everything up alongwith herself.

-It�s Olga,I� m sure of it. -OIga?

You saw herone night. She tried to give you a DVD. It�s her!

-Oh, yes. -It was her,it was Olga!

-How can you be sure? -I� m sure.

She gave everyone 5 minutes to get out before the explosion.

She said that if any lsraeli was willing to die with her...

for peace,and not forwar, she would be happy.

-And then what? -Everyone left,she was left alone.

She had a red knapsack on her shoulder. The police killed her...

before she could reach inside it. But there were only books inside it.

KINGDOM 3 - PARADISE

There are two women, side by side.

l am one of them. The otherone,I� ve never seen...

but l can recognize myself.

It�s... like...

an image...

but seen from a distance.

-Good morning. -Good morning.

-Catch! -Here, come on!

-That �s it! -Go, go!

��STREET WITH NO RETURN��

It was a beautiful,clear day.

You could see very far,but not the place where Olga left.

C APTlONS BY VlDEOLAR