From Weddings as Resistance to Resistance to Weddings

Abstract

This study focuses on two films in which weddings are conspicuously absent, Villa Touma (Suha Arraf, 2014) and In Between (Bar Bahr, Maysaloun Hamoud, 2016). Both films have a distinct focus on weddings: they are mentioned repeatedly—whether with longing or loathing, occasionally rendered in the films’ hazy perimeters, in ways that mark them as unsubstantial, inane and infecund, but most often they are occasions that end up not happening, non-doings that I call ‘un-weddings’. I examine the significances of this absence, especially as it contrasts with prevailing representations of weddings in Palestinian films that tend to portray weddings in powerful opposition to death and as the fulfillment of a profound personal longing and communal expectations that may also symbolize national aspirations.