Chronicle of a Disappearance

Nobody in Elia Suleiman's debut seems to be after anything, and the people on screen keep dropping out of view. Suleiman plays E.S. alongside his own parents, Nazira and Fuad, in short scenes across Nazareth and Jerusalem: a souvenir-shop owner stocking up for Japanese tourists, a Palestinian actress hunting for an apartment, soldiers pulling over to urinate. Each scene is a small piece of ordinary life, and each one marks a Palestinian presence that could vanish.