"Munich," "Syriana" and "Brokeback Mountain" are hitting roadblocks in the Mideast -- but not for the predictable reasons.
In the Arab world, "Munich" is under fire more for its nudity than its politics. And it's not booked into many theaters in the Palestinian territories simply because the Palestinian distribution system is so disorganized.
"Syriana" and "Brokeback Mountain" still face censorship in key territories. It's too soon to say if their Oscar noms will clear a path for them in key territories from Dubai to Beirut.
The Arab press has been mostly positive in its coverage of "Munich." Even satcaster Al Jazeera recently ran a special item on the film praising it.
In Israel, where "Munich" opened wide with 30 prints, the same number as family blockbusters "Harry Potter" and "King Kong," the film has aroused passionate debate.
"Munich" received a cool reception from the Israeli security service, many of whom questioned its veracity. But it went straight to the top at the Israeli box office, earning some 25,000 admissions, more than double its nearest rival. "The audience reactions have been very good, much, much better than all the criticism before it came out. It is already the talk of the day," says Dorit Ishay of Globus Group, which is handling the pic in Israel.
Even the shocking victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections days before the film was released hasn't deterred the Israeli public from turning out for Spielberg's opus.
In the U.S., conservative Jewish-American commentators, such as Leon Wieselthier, Charles Krauthammer and Andrea Poyser, attacked the film, while orgs such as the Zionist Organization of America have called for a boycott. But for the most part, Israelis are bemused by the hysteria.
"Hollywood can't really say something about us -- the Middle East -- that we don't know better," says Goel Pinto, film critic with Haaretz, Israel's leading liberal daily newspaper. "I'm 35, and all I've ever known in my life is war. No American director, even if they are Jews, can tell me more about the region. I don't know the last time Mel Gibson went to Nazareth. I was there last week,"
The bile that "Munich" has generated Stateside has surprised the pic's producer, Kathleen Kennedy, and co-screenwriter, Tony Kushner, no stranger to controversy due to his public opposition to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
"We were warned the irony would be that the conservative Jewish American community would be much more difficult to deal with than (critics) in Israel," comments Kennedy. "The fact that the conservative Jewish American critics are just hell-bent on shutting us down is quite disheartening."It's been tough for Palestinian audiences to even find places to see the film. But Kennedy has worked closely with many of the Israeli Arab members of the cast, particularly Palestinian actress Hiam Abbas, who also served as a consultant, and has tried to arrange screenings in the Palestinian territories. The problem has been the fragmented network of theaters there.
"Munich" and "Syriana" have been generating plenty of publicity, but it remains to be seen how many people across the region will get a chance to see them in their local theaters. "Munich" recently cleared the censorship board in the United Arab Emirates, which requested only minimal cuts because of nudity, the depiction of which is illegal in the country.
"Syriana" has been approved by Egypt, with a positive decision by the UAE expected shortly. Balking at the film's political sensitivities, censors in Dubai have passed the final OK to the emirate' s highest censorship body in Abu Dhabi. The film's distributor is confident the pic will eventually pass, since the script for "Syriana" had already been cleared by UAE authorities when the film was granted permission to become the first Hollywood movie to lens there back in late 2004.
Both films' prospects elsewhere in the region are more uncertain.
Prints of "Munich" are now making their way across the censorship boards of the region, through Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain, Oman and Lebanon, as the beleaguered band of Arab distributors nervously await approval.
Kennedy says the producers will consider pushing up the DVD release date if the film fails to get past the Arab censors. "I think that we'd be very open to making some minor changes, but ultimately our biggest push will probably be with DVD sales," she says. "We've gone out of our way to do a very thorough Arabic subtitling and dub, which is normally not done. Once the movie comes out on DVD, then it can be shown uncensored."
While nudity remains the biggest bugaboo in territories such as Egypt and Persian Gulf states, the film's politics are raising eyebrows and troubling local sensitivities in Lebanon, even though the country is traditionally the most liberal of Arab societies.
Tunisia, on the other hand, is expected to pass "Munich" with no problems. (It's no coincidence that it was one of the first Arab countries to recognize Israel back in 1965.) "Everything is sensitive in the Arab world," quips Salim Ramya, head of distributor Gulf Film, which is handling "Munich" in the region.
"I handled 'Lord of War' in Lebanon. They didn't want to show the Jewish guy buying Uzi machine guns from Israelis and selling it to Muslims in Lebanon to fight the Christians during the Lebanese civil war. So they cut the scene. It's stupid."
Fighting all these censorship battles might seem like more trouble than it's worth, given the modest box office sums wrung up in these smaller markets, but distributors put up with it. Filmgoing audiences have soared in recent years in the Arab world, particularly among growing ex-pat populations in the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait..
"You never know how people are going to react," Ramya says, in a break from censorship meetings. "You should read the newspapers in Dubai about 'Brokeback Mountain.' Some people are attacking it, some people are saying they want to see it. Some people are criticizing others for living in the 17th century."
"Brokeback Mountain" is likely to run into problems in some Muslim countries where homosexuality remains officially illegal, even if tolerated behind closed doors.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese distributor of "Syriana," Tony Chakra, offered a terse "I'm keeping my fingers crossed," when asked of the film'schances of passing the censor there. Whatever the box office results, the debate over this clutch of bold films is set to rumble for some time to come.
"It's not a coincidence that in the same summer we were filming 'Munich,' Ariel Sharon tore Likud in half and made a new party with Shimon Peres," Tony Kushner says. "The ground is shaking all over the place."
The flip side of "Munich" might be "Paradise Now." Hany Abu-Assad's tale of a day in the life of two Palestinian suicide bombers, which just nabbed an Oscar nom for best foreign film.
Like Spielberg, Abu-Assad was initially shunned by his homegrown audience. "Paradise" was ignored by commercial Israeli distributors, and its reception among Palestinians is equally lukewarm, with some unhappy the film offers a less than valedictory portrayal of suicide bombers. The only theater to show the pic was Alon Garbouz's arthouse, the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.
"Paradise Now" has sold 10,000 tickets, grossing half a million shekels ($107,000) -- modest by blockbuster standards but a sizeable number for a low-budget hot potato.
Controversy is nothing new to Garbouz. He also decided to screen "Downfall," the German film about the last days of Hitler, at the Cinematheque. Unlike "Paradise," however, "Downfall" also succeeded in getting a limited commercial release in Israel.
"They're not afraid to show a film about Hitler, but they are afraid to show a film about Palestinians," says Garbouz.
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