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Angel for a New Place

On the Film Local Angel


ALAIN BADIOU

Local Angel is not only a very beautiful and interesting movie, but also a
very important one. Naturally we can say its beautiful and interesting
because of its subtle construction composed of very beautiful images of
New York, the Palestinian territories, and of men and women from several countries, however, there is a more fundamental reason, which is that
the movie occurs at the intersection between a very subjective determination and a very objective situation. The story is certainly not only about
the Palestinian situation, but also about the figures of the mother and the
exile who is dealing with that distance between New York and Israel which
is the fundamental division of his consciousness.
This subjective determination is completely linked with the objective
situation, with the question of the Palestinian plight, as well as larger
questions of war, violence, and history. In fact, there is a sort of a constructive interplay between the subjective question, which is very profound and difficult, and the objective investigation, which is never too
partial or too subjective, of the radicality of the political situation. Despite
a very complex construction, the great question of the film is very clear:
what are the real conditions of peace for everybody?

First published in Polemics (London: Verso, 2006).

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7/6/11 8:00 PM

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