Just last week I was complaining about how rare it is to see a film on Africa that has an African, not Western, perspective. You could say the same thing about the Middle East, where even a well-intentioned film like "Syriana" views the region mostly through the avatars of George Clooney and Matt Damon.
This month, however, sees the release of "Paradise Now," a film shot by a Palestinian director in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, featuring a topic that no Western director in his right mind would touch -- what makes a man become a suicide bomber.
True, "Syriana" touched upon the subject, but more as a failure of U.S. policy in the region than a detailed portrait of the psychology that leads a man into this destructive final act.