Let It Be Morning
“Let It Be Morning” is a slow-burn that looks at personal drama, as well as larger, societal issues. The emotions are muted, but the feelings are genuine when it arrives to its big moments for Sami (Alex Bakri), and his home village, which he, his wife and their son find themselves stuck in when a lockdown occurs. Writer-director Eran Kolirin, in adapting Sayed Kashua’s novel, is using this premise to comment on a man reconnecting with his community after being away, coming to see what matters personally, and both the tenuous reality of life for Palestinians, as well as the experience of pandemic lockdowns. It’s only in the third act of the film, I feel, where all of these ideas come together, but when they do, it culminates in a collection of anger and sadness that is universal.
Sami is at his brother’s wedding in their home village with wife Mira (Juna Suleiman) and son Adam (Maruan Hamdan). They are Palestinian, but hold Israeli citizenship, as Sami’s job is in Jerusalem. Even so, when they leave to return to Jerusalem, they are unable to leave when Israeli forces have blocked off the only road out of the village. They go back to Sami’s father’s home to stay until the road re-opens, and try to carry on their regular routine. Unfortunately for Sami, he has a job in Jerusalem- with a presentation due to next day- and a mistress that he cannot get in touch with (phone reception is non-existent), so a regular routine means facing some hard truths about not just his life, but the lives of his loved ones.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most volatile subjects in the world, and it’s striking to see how well Kolirin threads the needle when the film does approach it in the microcosm of this one moment. The checkpoint Sami is hoping to cross is off-limits to him, even for the sake of making that all-important phone call to his job. He can go and talk to the guard, but the guard has instructions he must follow, and despite Sami’s status as a citizen, he has to accept that. We also see how the village is largely split, as well, by class, and how some of the working-class rebellion in someone like Sami’s brother-in-law threatens the livelihoods of the upper-middle class members of the village, like Sami’s blood family. By the end of the film, this is the aspect that builds strongest in “Let It Be Morning,” as the isolation of being locked down gives way to an uprising against their oppressors. This is what much of the finale is about, and it closes the film on a powerful note.
Less successful is the familial drama Sami finds himself embroiled in. Ultimately, the film is anchored by the more political aspects of the narrative, but much of the film revolves around Sami having to recalibrate his feelings towards his family during the long lockdown. This is where the comparison I made to COVID, and especially the early months, came from. I know of some people whose relationships with loved ones were strained to the point of breaking, and I felt the struggle Sami does being isolated from my job because I was furloughed, even though I also welcomed the slowing down of my life after a particularly stressful time in it. The film didn’t engage me with this part quite as much, because it also feels like a very basic narrative of a man starting to be thankful for what he has when he has to shift his priorities. But regardless, I still find myself thinking quite positively about “Let It Be Morning” in the end; it may not land every moment, but it builds to an impactful one.
