The Gatekeepers Review

3rd Apr 2013

I took along someone who has a much better knowledge of the issues and region than I do, but I needn’t have bothered. The Gatekeepers is simply a set of superficial interviews of the former leaders of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic secret service. Unfortunately, they never probe into the world of one of the most volatile regions in the world, although there is something of a (minor) twist at the end.

Split into three parts, the first started off with the ex-leaders of Shin Bet espousing a seemingly callous view of the problems between Palestine and Israel. I didn’t learn anything knew and I felt that I was hearing things I expected. In the second section I felt that the ex-leaders of Shin Bet were creating a distance between themselves and the government, with a disturbing lack of accountability that was never fully investigated. The third section was devoted to a sort of leftist view of peace and harmony that they all wanted at heart, but couldn’t quite be bothered with when they were in a position to influence things.

But honestly, I felt that it was all a load of rubbish. Undoubtedly a propaganda film of some sort I couldn’t understand who the audience would be. As someone in the western world with a very basic understanding of the region, I didn’t feel educated at all by it. I thought perhaps it was for a young audience within Israel, which seems to make more sense – I did feel that it was a rallying call for young people to tackle the issues with perhaps a more peaceful stance.

Throughout it I felt that it lacked courage and wasn’t giving any insight. Then in its dying moments it touched briefly on two extraordinary statements. One ex-leader of Shin Bet likened the Israelis treatment of the Palestinians to that of Nazi Germany – although specifically to Poles, Czechs etc not towards the Jewish people. Also another ex-leader talked about how by putting every single young person through the military forces high-school children to make decisions that they are not capable of. The end shots were of Israeli forces searching through a Palestinian house. As someone with a vague understanding of film, I know these were chosen deliberately, but to what end? And why not really go into this?

It’s difficult to separate a review of the documentary to a review of the lacklustre and opaque views within the documentary. I will say this though, without a clear message, audience or significant revelations, I don’t see it having any real impact. There are better documentaries out there on the region.