“A tree is a source of life, and one raises it like a child,” says Husneia El-Abed Hassan, an old woman who was raised among the olive tree groves of the small West Bank town of Budrus. “When an enemy comes to your land and takes it away from you, death becomes a lot easier.” And so begins the tale of Budrus, a documentary about a Palestinian village’s struggle to prevent the government of Israel from building a portion of the separation barrier through their land.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin first proposed the idea of the separation barrier in 1992, though the first continuous segment of the fence was not built until 2003. The fence was mandated by the Israeli government to create a wall between Israel and the West Bank, but construction plans showed that large swaths of the fence would cut through Palestinian territory, severing six Palestinian villages from portions of their own land and the rest of the West Bank. As one of those six villages, Budrus was faced with losing 300 acres of land, 3,000 olive trees, and a portion of its cemetery.
Budrus takes place in 2009, just as plans to build the separation barrier through the village are gaining momentum. The film follows community leader Ayed Morrar as he rallies his town into action and organizes protests to prevent the bulldozers from cutting down the olive trees. By the time the Israeli army arrives, the people of Budrus have gathered, ready to protect the branches that have shaded their ancestors for generations.
Narrated alternately in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, the film unfolds as Morrar’s struggle begins to gain attention on a national level. When at first the protests fail, Morrar’s daughter becomes involved, leading the women of the town to the center of the struggle. When they too start to lose traction, a group of Israelis who support the cause cross into the West Bank and join the villagers of Budrus at the front line. For 10 months, the people of Budrus and their Israeli supporters fight an unarmed war, enduring tear gas and physical assault for the sake of their olive trees.
Unlike many documentaries about the Middle East, which are often sprawling in scope and heavily one-sided, Budrus is tightly narrated from the outset and takes the struggle over the olive trees as its focal point. Director Julie Bacha maintains her narrative and uses the power of a very specific story to speak broadly about a much larger problem. Although Budrus does adopt the common trope of documentaries about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict — with Palestinians and Israelis, Hamas leaders and Israeli army soldiers, young men and old women alike all insisting that their only aim is peace — it manages to transcend the drama that typically perverts such films.
Bacha’s only true failing is in the absence of specific dates and times to guide the film. Time passes in unrecorded and indiscernible increments, and there are almost no specific dates to ground the viewer. The film begins with a town meeting and immediately cuts to the first protest, but it remains ambiguous whether the reaction to the meeting is instant or if a number of days or even weeks have passed. While this would typically signal inconsistency and manipulation in documentary filmmaking, the weight Bacha gives to each voice and the precision of her focus preserves the integrity of the movie.
To the extent that a film about the Middle East can be, Budrus is a story of hope. It is the story of a determined village of 1,500 people desperately fighting to save their trees, to save their history. While the movie could’ve easily lapsed into an incendiary piece against government or fall into sentimentality, the narrowness of the story and the depth with which that story is approached result in a graceful and textured film that provides a tremendous amount of insight into a vastly complicated struggle.
