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Catching a Killer on Film

[New York Jewish Week] George Robinson - Pierre Rehov's new film, "Suicide Killers," one of the most in-depth looks at suicide bombing committed to film, opens with unprecedented footage of a bomber preparing for his mission. The Gaza terrorist is still on the loose, waiting for an order. "It was like having access to a serial killer ready to kill his 20th victim," Rehov wrote. Lisa Magnas, the executive in charge of production for the film, said: "The bomber is under close security watch. His every move is known to Israeli security....There's no way he can cross the border into Israel without being known." The film includes lengthy interviews with failed suicide bombers in Israeli prisons. "I went to many prisons, and that they let me come back often and spend a lot of time inside," Rehov said. "After you get checked by the Shin Bet, they let you easily inside the system. Israel is the most open democracy I ever had to deal with." Rehov argues that the mindset of the suicide bomber "is the same...as that of a serial killer," driven not by political or ideological concerns but, the film posits, by sexual frustration that is bred by the reactionary gender politics of fundamentalist Islam. "The youngest ones regret not having become the heroes they were [dreaming of being]," Rehov explained. "They also must be very disappointed to continue to live in the same hell that they did in the past, a society composed only of males, where women are ghosts, dreams, or nightmares, depending on their point of view." "As you can see in the film, the entire jail prays five times a day. For all those guys, religion is the center of their life. They believe that Allah has refused their martyrdom."
2006-08-25 01:00:00
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