Voted... Best Middle Eastern Restaurant by the Jewish News Readers! Lunches DINE-1N ONLY 1 starting at OFF $495 Total Bill Expires 4/30/03 Not good with any other offer. 1 I Not available on lunch or dinner specials. I Full Service Catering r FREE Complete Dinners i Appetizer Tray: ($25" Value) I as low as 1 With any catering order of $125 1 s. Not good with any other offer. 1 I I $795 I 1 1 I Expires 4/30/03 ' I 1 4189 ORCHARD LAKE AT PONTIAC TRAIL IN WEST BLOOMFIELD (248) 865-0000 Open 7 Days a Week for Lunch & Dinner Filmmaker Elia Suleiman in "Divine Intervention." never submitted, and, therefore, was neither considered nor rejected. Suleiman's previous film, the semi- autobiographical Chronicle of a Disappearance, received substantial fund- ing from the Israeli Fund for Quality Film and was banned in Arab countries. That film's final, and offending, scene, which the 42-year-old director said was misinterpreted, showed an old Palestinian man sleeping in front of a TV screen with an Israeli flag fly- ing high to the strains of "Hatikvah," Israel's national anthem. "I was termed a collaborator and a Zionist," Suleiman recalled. "I was booed in the screening room and tabooed in the Arab world." In an earlier interview, Suleiman, who now makes his home in Paris and Jerusalem, had this to say about his work: "My films are first an expression of who I am — a little distant, a little alien- ated, very sad. And, at the same time, very humorous. Very Jewish, really." ❑ bors. They toss garbage into each other's yards and vandalize each other's cars, funneling their seething resent- ment of the Israelis toward each other. Suleiman pulls no punches in depicting the impotence of Israeli Arabs. At the same time, the only Israelis with whom we see Arabs inter- acting are soldiers, police or settlers — that is, the symbols of an occupying force. The Israelis, in turn, are depict- ed as alternately bumbling and abu- sive, arbitrary yet themselves afraid. The ongoing suffering in the Middle East readily lends itself to polemics, of course. But thanks to Suleiman's gifts as a satirist, his zeal for absurdity and his recognition of the situation's complexity, Divine Intervention easily transcends propa- ganda into the realm of art. The soundtrack, meanwhile, pulses with a female singer's Middle Eastern- inflected rendition of the ominous Screamin' Jay Hawkins classic "I Put a Spell On You." The joke is that Suleiman's passive character only imagines himself as an intimidating figure. But the sequence also plays like a veiled threat — that is, if you are unaware that the singer, Natasha Atlas, is an Algerian Jew. For all its deadpan humor and witty sight gags, however, Divine Intervention is a button-pusher for American Jews concerned about Israel's future. When an intellectual and a moder- ate like Suleiman is as angry, frustrated and hopeless as the average Palestinian on the street, it is worrisome indeed. It is preposterous, of course, to count on divine intervention to save the pressure cooker. But, Suleiman confronts us, how is that any more ridiculous than relying on the men who have bungled the job so badly up `61 now? Restaurant 607110 w to the following Jewish News readers who most accurately picked the winners in our Oscar contest. Divine Intervention: A Chronicle of Love and Pain is scheduled to open Friday, April 4, at Landmark's Maple Art Theatre in Bloomfield Township. (248) 542-0180. itills. wilt rece nd small po month for ❑ Prizes courtesy of mi Laurie Blum of Farmington g;7 ' 2 Sheldon Rubin of Oak Park Dorothy Deitch of Southfield Cindy Reed Norman of Bloomfield Hies will each receive a pair of movie passes `---c 570 AG/NE 7N£ MAG3C OF ACMES % MORE OF Novi ENJOY THE SHOW! C TIZairOart coop HO USE 7eY2ere :Business _Reels Pleasure Available for Private Dining on Sundays -b appointment only - • Bar/Bat Mitzvahs • Weddings/Anniversaries • Private Pareies up to 400 Guests 245 S. Eton, Birmingham • (248) 647-7774 it, ,,,,,big rockchophouse.coin J4, 4/ 4 2003 87