French Movie Trailer: Julian Schnabel’s ‘Miral,’ Starring Freida Pinto
By Russ Fischer/July 16, 2010 9:55 am EST
Schnabel directed from a script by Rula Jebreal, who adapted her own novel about Miral (Freida Pinto), a teen resident of a Jerusalem orphanage run by a Palestinian woman (Hiam Abbass).
I’m very much looking forward to this one, as Schnabel’s last film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, was one of the most beautiful films of 2007. (That’s Schnabel’s last dramatic film — around the same time he also documented a performance of Lou Reed’s album ‘Berlin’.) This trailer makes Miral look a lot more conventional, almost like a political thriller in a certain way. It is certainly a lot more forceful than the meditative Diving Bell.
Here’s a synopsis of the novel:
[via The Playlist]
Philanthropist Hind Husseini creates a children’s shelter in 1948 in response to the destruction wrought by the first Arab-Israeli war. Decades later, Miral comes into Hind’s care after her mother kills herself. As Miral witnesses the effects of the Israeli campaigns against the intifada, she draws closer to the political fringes, finally choosing to join the struggle in full. Yet the benevolent influence of Hind and an eye-opening friendship with an Israeli socialist subdues Miral’s radicalism and offers some hope for the future. Jebreal is a successful journalist in Italy, and true to form the plot rips along with quick-reading prose, though the characters’ simplicity presents a big problem, in that, despite the dire circumstances, it’s hard to connect with archetypes.
