Palestine Film Festival Review: Happy Days

Director Larissa Sansour’s “Happy Days” is a 3-minute video set in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The video is based on the theme song to the American TV sitcom, “Happy Days,” where Sansour plays the Palestinian and the Israeli Army plays itself.

For viewers who would like to refresh their memories on the lyrics to the song, here is a link http://www.sitcomsonline.com/themesonglyrics.html. Sansour uses the ending theme to the old series.

Once I heard the music and I saw the spinning record, I let out a roar of laughter. The idea of incorporating the “Happy Days” theme song into images of occupation from the West Bank and East Jerusalem never crossed my mind.

However, the Palestinians live a bleak reality, especially within the last year. For the sake of readership knowledge and context, I will present a few facts given at a recent lecture (04/17/07) by the Director of the Representative Office of UNRWA Andrew Whitley. Within the last year, the Palestinian Gross Domestic Product collapsed by 23 per cent and in Gaza, 80 per cent of the population lives below the official poverty line of US $2.05 per day per capita. From the outbreak of the second Intifada on September 28, 2000 – March 2007, approximately 860 children under the age of 17 have been killed at the hands of Israelis and within this figure 160 -170 in the last year. The 2006 figures show a significant increase in the rate of violence.

“Happy Days” is an ironic, cinematic response to these realities. Sansour shows the wall, the cameras, the Israeli soldiers manning the checkpoints, and the people living in a military atmosphere. While Sansour tries to play a musical instrument called the oud, images of the people flash one after the other. There are no smiling faces among the Palestinians, but there is one image of a young, Israeli soldier showing the camera his tongue piercing.

On the Palestinian side of the wall is graffiti, so Sansour shakes her finger in front of a “Stop Apartheid” logo. Her scornful facial expression is really a reaction to the Israeli occupation. In real life the Palestinians live far away from “happy” days. Her music selection has specific audiences in mind.

The American TV show sitcom “Happy Days” was a nostalgic yearning for a time, place and space. Sansour is drawing on that nostalgia of a time in life when Palestinians did not live under occupation. At the same time she is responding to the Palestinian reality with mockery cinematically. Fro example, during the song lines “Goodbye grey sky, hello blue” Sansour casts an outward gaze, but no smile. In the TV show “Happy Days,” the girls wore long, flowing and bouncing skirts, and sometimes they wore their hair in high ponytails with ribbons. In contrast, Sansour wears a conservative, black skirt with black, protective boots and her two ponytails are pulled down to the side, alongside her face. All of these exquisite details illustrate quality.

Finally, there is an underlying message in the video that asks the question: when will Palestinians see a future? This video has complex layers of dramatic irony, which is why Sansour’s work is so fascinating.

This film is showing Friday, April 20, 2007, at 6:00 P.M. at the Gene Siskel Film Center for the 6th Annual Chicago Palestine Film Festival.

Directed by: Larissa Sansour
Country: Denmark/Palestine
Year: 2006
Duration: 3 minutes

-U.S. journalist and film critic Sonia Nettnin writes about social, political, economic, and cultural issues. Her focus is the Middle East.

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