Canadian writer-director Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s second feature owes much to her documentary movie roots. It’s less a narrative than a docu-drama journey through the Israeli-Palestinian border. Young Canadian doctor Chloé (Evelyne Brochu) ventures daily from Jerusalem through checkpoints, soldiers and citizens to work in a West Bank refugee camp. As her patients remind her, she is “white”: a privileged foreigner who remains an outsider, bearing witness to conflict, division and suffering without taking sides. But fusing the objective viewpoint of documentary with the subjectivity of a fictional protagonist lends a fragmented frame in which scenes of shopping and clubbing are juxtaposed with sudden bursts of violence. What unifies the film is Brochu’s bravura central performance, subtly conveying Chloé’s internalisation of the conflict as she journeys from innocence to experience.
The Arabic title, Inch’Allah, translates as “God/Allah willing” so perhaps it suggests there is hope. But, for audience members unfamiliar with the political-historical-religious quagmire of the region, there is little explanation. You either know, or you are plunged into a world where violence is a constant threat and daily reality. The result is a tough watch, with a final act that feels forced. It’s as if, after the episodic nature of the majority of the film, a “Big Dramatic Moment” is needed by way of cinematic conclusion. Nonetheless in the end it’s a worthy and beautifully shot attempt to bear witness to the tragedy of an ongoing, seemingly irresolvable and unrelenting cycle of violence.
