In Western media we are usually only exposed to the Israeli side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This documentary provides the viewer with a glimpse into the Palestinian side. Emad Burnat is a Palestinian farmer living in Bil'in, a small village close to the West Bank. The land his family has farmed for generations is being slowly encroached upon by settlements the Israelis are building in the West Bank. He purchases his first camera to capture the birth and childhood of his youngest son. Along with his son's childhood he captures the building of a wall that cuts through the village's olive groves and the violence that befalls the villagers as they use nonviolent protest against the taking of their land by the Israeli government. The title of the documentary gets its name from the fact that Burnat has five different cameras destroyed in one way or another by Israeli soldiers as he films what is happening to his village. I highly recommend this documentary so that one at least knows what the side often unseen in this conflict endures.

Hey, I understand; we can't expect someone inside of a conflict to present the whole conflict. And Five Broken Cameras certainly shows us how things look when you're in the midst of it.However, our narrator is not just biased; he is also intentionally less than honest, omitting details that might muddy his narrative of a small peaceful village being put upon by invasive developers. Plenty happens, but rarely in cause-and-effect terms that make clear why. Even one-sided presentations need to make sense.There is a truth here that supersedes what the filmmaker intends. While presented as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is also an urban-rural conflict: the city expands, takes up land; the locals object to incursion into "their" land; the urban police enforce the expansion. This film captures how that is experienced by the rural villagers -- with no understanding of the urban view, or understanding of how to deal with it, except to see it as a violation that requires resistance.Rather besides the filmmaker's story is what it portends for later: he brings his three-year-old to the barrier demonstrations, which we have already seen to become dangerous; he frames perception of the police as life-threatening outsiders; he frames the whole narrative of his sons' lives in terms of what indignities Israel was perpetrating. Finally, he continuously acts to make his own martyrdom as likely as possible. This is textbook "How To Raise Your Son To Be A Terrorist", and we get to see exactly how & why, by people who only want to do their best for their kids.

5 Broken Cameras (2011) is a Palestinian documentary film directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi. The movie is narrated by Emad Burnat, who films life and strife in his village in the occupied West Bank.Living in an occupied territory will always be frustrating and, at times, humiliating. However, the major issue that the film follows is the building of huge Israeli "settlements" in the occupied territory. (The "settlements" look like large, fortress-like, apartment complexes.)Although we have all seen footage of Palestinians throwing rocks, and Israeli soldiers responding with teargas and rubber bullets, Burnat films less dramatic instances of nonviolent resistance by Palestinian villagers. As a participant-observer, Burnat is himself vulnerable. He was seriously injured in one skirmish. The title "Five Broken Cameras" refers to Burnat's own cameras, which were smashed during confrontations with Israeli soldiers. (Some of the cameras were purposely destroyed, while others were hit by rubber bullets.)Whatever your position is about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it's useful to see a film that presents the Palestinian perspective. We saw this movie at Rochester's Little Theatre as part of the excellent Witness Palestine Film Series. It will work better on a large screen, but it's worth seeing on DVD if that's the only option available. Five Broken Cameras was nominated for an Oscar in 2012 as Best Foreign Film.

While interesting it is a very flat movie that could have shown both sides fairly. It does not. Nazis will love this film. If I were very ignorant of the Middle East and Levant I would be shocked. Luckily I am not and see this as interesting propaganda. That and Israeli co-directed it is not shocking. The US has Jane Fonda and Michael Moore spouting falsehoods so why not Israel. Luckily, he is an Israeli, because Arab film makers who show things like 5 Broken Cameras get killed. It would have been better had the film shown what was happening in the area when all the cameras were broken. Once it was a puck Israeli, the rest were when fighting was going on. It is odd that one would go into a fire fight then complain that it was dangerous. Getting in between combatants is seldom a good idea. I wondered on the second screening if he had wanted to die, and be a good martyr.