Checkpoint (Machssomim) Movie Review:


We see Israel and Palestine nearly every night on the news with reports of bombings. But what we hardly ever see is the day-to-day life of the two sides in this, the saddest of all conflicts, Checkpoint rectifies that.

Between 2001 and 2003 the filmmakers took their camera’s to the various checkpoints between the divided Palestinian communities and we are shown how utterly pointless and inhuman it all is. The documentary does not try to take sides, instead showing us the footage and letting us make up our own minds. Normally I would characterise this as a weakness, but not here. They don’t need to; the footage is so powerful that it does all the talking itself.

We see dozens of examples of people trying to cross the checkpoints, being degraded at each and every turn. Such as the small children who had to go through on their own as there mother’s papers weren’t in order. Or the guy who had been let through in the morning and wasn’t allowed back at night “Where will I go?” he asks. “Not my problem” answers the soldier. I know the soldiers are only carrying out orders, but when the orders are as inhuman as this it’s terrible.

It would have been easy for the soldiers guarding the checkpoint to be shown as uncaring thugs, and although some of them are pretty damn thick, they are generally revealed as kids who would really rather be anywhere else. It’s the system of oppression that’s at fault, not the guards. At each and every turn the checkpoints are either closed, or the Palestinians are forced to take another route, or just wait. The news portrays the checkpoints as tools to try and catch terrorists, but from the footage it’s painfully obvious it’s about nothing other than control of a people who have nothing.

While I hate to use the Nazi reference, wasn’t this one of the tactics they used in controlling the Jews themselves? It was heartbreaking to watch a man waiting at the checkpoint cowering in the rain, for no apparent reason.

A superb documentary, that focuses on a subject that needs more than just the sound bite news coverage that we normally get.

Gary Gray

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