The Law In These Parts (2012)
Average Rating: 7.9/10
Reviews Counted: 14
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Critic Reviews: 8
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 176
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What is legal and what is just? The wide gap between the two is explored meticulously by this Israeli investigation (winner of the Best Documentary Award at the Sundance and Jerusalem Film Festivals) of the legal structure created after the 1967 Six Days War, specifically to treat the West Bank and Gaza Strip as occupied territories. Speaking with some of Israel's most respected lawyers and judges - men who helped to craft and later interpret these laws - filmmaker Ra'anan Alexandrowicz asks
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All Critics (14) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (2)
On the surface, it sounds like a boring, esoteric day in law class, but in truth, it plays out like a riveting session in court ...
Top CriticThis may sound like a dry, legalistic endeavor, but the result will surprise you.
"The Law in These Parts'' more than accomplishes its goal of provoking a discussion about imposing laws on people who have no say in making them.
Both provocative and self-indulgent.
The Law in These Parts applies a cold anger to one of the geopolitical world's most passionate discords.
By keeping its focus admirably tight, the sober and sobering Israeli documentary "The Law in These Parts" presents a devastating case against the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The Law in These Parts offers a series of historical anecdotes, memories that may or may not be wholly precise, framed by the filmmaker's commentary on the definitions of law, citizenship, and their effects on so-called realities.
Punctuated with pungent visual and narrative footnotes, comes close to being the Pentagon Papers of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories' legal framework.
A film that allows Israeli military judges to hang themselves on their own petards, men who might have sent a shiver down the spine of the Nazi architects of the Nuremberg Laws.
A must-see documentary about the questionable laws, enforcement and justice at work in Israel's occupied zones, where an apparent double standard are imposed on the densely packed Palestinian occupants.
A film for those who, whether here or in Israel, believe the law is the beginning, and not the end, of rights discourse.
A cleverly staged and structured film which attempts to explain and understand how Israel seizing Palestinian-occupied territory became accepted practice.
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November 16, 2012:
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Making it all the worse is the staunch defense the retired judges that are the subjects of this documentary still put forward. As far as they were concerned, the form of justice they were serving was to make sure whatever the military needed to happen, happened. No authority figure in the Israel army was ever questioned, and each judge took the word of the army as absolute truth, while discounting the Palestinians at every opportunity, because they were the "enemy". This was the system they were a part of, and a system they could break free of.
All the Supreme Court did was enable the military.Their involvement eases the mind of Israelis, in OKing the military's actions. When increasingly large numbers of Palestinians were being arrested, the system started failing, as everyone had to stand trial. So what happened? They thought they'd speed the whole process up by bypassing that whole pesky trial aspect, unless a trial was explicitly asked for; the system was fine once again. Did this have to pass through parliament or anything? No, don't be silly! It was the decision of one man, and who knows how many thousands of lives it affected. Completely absurd.
There's a theory put forward that if the military had been left to their own devices, going about things in an even more violent manner, the people of Israel would have spoken out against this, and not let it going on as long as it has.
One interviewee says towards the end that these laws weren't written for the people within the Occupied Territories; they were written to protect us. We wouldn't be able to enjoy the safety that we do without their actions. "Us" and "we" was in the context of the people of Israel. I couldn't however help but think of the current U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
It's a mad world we live in where people in power think and function like this. It doesn't seem like it's stopping any time soon either. This is not justice, it's delusion. A real eye-opener.