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Jared Griffin
English 580
Dr. Croteau
March 2, 2011
Sell Now: Exploring the Connection between Martyrdom, Western Religion, and Leonard Da
Vinci’s The Last Supper
In Paradise Now, directed by Hany Abu-Assad, there is a scene that highly resembles
Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting The Last Supper. The evidence to demonstrate this
assertion’s validity is seen in many ways. First, there are thirteen individuals in both the painting
and the scene. Second, all the individuals are sitting at the table on the opposing side of the
viewer in the painting and the scene in the film. Third, the wide-angle, long shot, and motionless
camera at almost the exact distance from the objects in the frame as is in the painting cause it to
look like a still image or a painting. Fourth, going beyond the physicality of the similarities of
the scene and the painting, the context of what is taking place in the narrative of the film and the
painting is strikingly similar. In The Last Supper, it is well known that this is the final meal Jesus
Christ eats prior to his death on a cross to save all sinners. In the scene from Paradise Now, it is
also clear that this is the last meal Said and Khaled will have before they blow themselves up
inside a bus full of people for the salvation and “continuation of resistance [to] change
something” (Said 1:22:43) for the Palestinians. With all this evidence, it is clear the director of
Paradise Now undeniably makes a conscious decision to metaphorically connect Khaled and
Said to Jesus Christ. However, the unanswered question that is crucial in understanding the
reasoning behind this connection is: are both Said and Khaled meant to be seen as Christ figures,
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instead of just one of them? The argument crumbles with the amount of people sitting at the table
in the scene. In other words, if Jesus Christ had twelve disciples sitting with him, then he himself
was the thirteenth person in the painting. Therefore, if Said and Khaled are both the Christ
figures, then there are only eleven “disciples?” Does this not demonstrate that the number is
incorrect? The answer to this question is yes, the numbering is off. Therefore, there must be
something else that is missing. The missing component is found in viewing the rest of the film.
Clearly by the end of the film Khaled decides not to blow himself up for his political ideals. In
this case, Said is the only one who can truly be seen as a Christ figure because he does actually
appear to follow through with the mission of detonating the bombs strapped to him as he sits on
the bus in the final scene, and this then falls back in line with the proper numbering system
regarding the people sitting at the table in the “last supper” scene. By equating the character of
Said with the figure of Christ, the film successfully draws attention to itself as a Third World
Film by mocking Western traditional film making of sensationalizing “the hero.” The last supper
scene also demonstrates that just like art, Christ in the Western world is packaged and sold in a
sense, just like martyrdom is packaged and sold. Furthermore, the film also seeks to
metaphorically resemble the Palestinian people as a whole to the figure of Christ in that both are
rejected by the nation of Israel. In other words, Christ was a Jew, yet he was still rejected by the
Jews, and the Palestinians in Tel Aviv in which the narrative takes place is a part of the nation of
Israel, yet they are also rejected by the Jews. This rejection causes Said and Khaled to become
the subject of the true moral dilemma the Palestinian people have regarding the decision to
become suicide bombers and retaliate against the Jews.
Since the film operates from a presumably Muslim ideology, judging from the actions
and dialogue of the entire film, it seems odd that the director chooses to place such an emphasis
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on creating a connection between Said and Jesus Christ. It seems illogical for any Muslim film to
reference the prevailing “religion” of Western society without combining it with some sort of
sarcasm in order to make a point. The only reason the director chooses to do this may be to
demonstrate that he is aware that the Western world sensationalizes “the hero” in most of their
films, and in a sense, the hero is placed on the same pedestal as Jesus Christ within the context of
each individual film. Therefore, in purposefully referencing Jesus Christ within Paradise Now, it
mocks Western filmmakers and viewers in order to reject Western film conventions. This
rejection of Western/Hollywood conventions is a major component of Third World Cinema and
Third World Cinema Theory. Robert Stam in his essay “Third World Film and Theory,” has this
to say about the emotions Third World filmmakers and theorists have toward Hollywood: “Third
World filmmakers and theorists [resent] not only Hollywood’s domination of distribution circuits
but also its caricatural representations of their culture and history” (Stam 94). Therefore, by
characterizing Said as a Christ figure, Paradise Now is exaggerating the religious culture and
history of Western society just as Western society often does to them.
Teshome H. Gabriel in his essay “Towards a Critical Theory of Third World Films,” also
speaks about the concept of “the hero” when he says “…identification is not the films’ primary
objective; rather, it is the importance of collective engagement and action that matters. The
individual ‘hero’ in the Third World context does not make history; he/she only serves historical
necessities” (Gabriel 311). The “importance of collective engagement” means in Third World
Film, rather than glorifying a single character/hero within a film, Third World Film seeks to
celebrate the collective participation of each individual in the pursuit to politically better that
society.
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In realizing that the Palestinian people and Jesus Christ have a strikingly similar
relationship with the Jews, it is easy to understand that Said and Khaled are faced with the
dilemma of becoming suicide bombers. In fact, the whole of Palestine must be faced with this
dilemma. Therefore, this film further catapults itself into the realm of Third World Cinema style
due to the fact that “The Third World relies more on an appeal to social and political conflicts as
the prime rhetorical strategy and less on the paradigm of oedipal conflict and resolution”
(Gabriel 306). Instead of Paradise Now focusing the narrative on the love between Said and
Suha or a conflict that gets resolved at the end, it focuses on the back and forth colonial/anticolonial aggression between Palestine and Israel. Said and Khaled feel that it is their duty to their
people to further the resistance against the Jews. However, this sense of duty becomes
convoluted as the story escalates from preparing the suicide mission to actually executing it. At
first glance, it appears both Said and Khaled are un-wavered in their decision to complete the
mission. However, as the plot develops, Said seems to feel uneasy about completing the mission
and even asks Khaled if he thinks they are doing the right thing. Going even further into the
sequence of events, Khaled comes to the point where he decides that they are making a bad
decision and that they should not follow through with the mission. But interestingly enough, Said
at this point, is relentless and seems sure that he is doing the right thing in continuing the
resistance efforts. In summation, the film uses these two characters to embody and be the voice
of the daily struggles of the Palestinian people.
Keeping instep with the moral transformation of Said and Khaled, it is also seen within
the film that they lose their individual identity and are turned into pliable property for the
Palestinian resistance. This transformation is seen first through the production and reproduction
of the two men’s martyr videos. The first thing worth noting is the “staged” attributes of the
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“martyr video” scene. The words Khaled speaks are scripted, he puts on a shawl/scarf costume,
holds a large gun in his hand as a prop, and he is standing in front of a backdrop of what looks
like a stage. The first take of Khaled’s video is ruined because the camera does not work
properly. Jamal’s solution to this problem is “Doesn’t matter, we’ll do it again.” The message
this scene seems to convey is that contrary to the “realness” of Khaled’s speech, the camera’s
ability to retake and edit recordings demonstrates the ability of the resistance to control and
create a desired effect. “Reality TV” functions the same way in its false portrayal of reality. The
scene grows darkly humorous when during the second take of Khaled’s martyr video, Jamal and
another man begin eating pita sandwiches. These men seem to trivialize the fact that they are
making videos regarding Said and Khaled killing themselves and others. In doing this, the film
demonstrates that the resistance views these martyrs as tools to achieve a goal, instead of human
beings.
Even more interesting is the montage sequence that takes place after the martyr video
mishap. Just like the editing of the videos, the resistance also does a type of editing to Said and
Khaled physically. The sequence demonstrates their transformation from car mechanics to
martyrs. This further draws the viewers’ attention to how artificial the film itself and the martyr
videos truly are.
The culmination of the editing of the martyr videos and the montage sequence of physical
transformation is the replication of The Last Supper. The reproduction of the last supper scene
could also be seen as the film calling attention to the ability to package and sell art, Christ in the
Western world, martyr videos, and martyrs themselves. In other words, instead of Said and
Khaled dying for their own convictions, they are “edited” in a way that helps them sell better,
just like art is created to sell, and religion is created to sell.
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In essence, Paradise Now seeks to further the discourse of the process of film making. In
so doing, it brings to light many conventions of Third World film making and Third Cinema
theory. Furthermore, Paradise Now also demonstrates its awareness of itself in the realm of film
and film history in that it plays with and often goes against traditional Western conventions to
achieve the goal of representing Palestine and its people’s day-to-day struggles. Overall, the
concepts discussed in this paper only scratch the surface of the underlying messages and
conventions worth studying within the film.
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Works Cited
Gabriel, Teshome H. "Towards a Critical Theory of Third World Films." Film and Theory: An Anthology
(2000): 298-316.
Paradise Now. Dir. Hany Abu-Assad. Perf. Said. 2005.
Stam, Robert. Film Theory An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2000.