Playwright J.T. Rogers and director Bartlett Sher adapt their Tony-winning Broadway play about the peace talks between Israel and Palestine secretly organized by Norwegian diplomats in 1993.
The news footage at the end of Oslo shows Bill Clinton observing the 1993 handshake of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat. That crucial moment marked a landmark agreement in which the long-time enemies recognized each other’s legitimacy after decades long conflict.
The solemn emotional impact of the image is fueled by the knowledge that Rabin would be assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli extremist, and despite ongoing peace talks, that historic accord would be shattered as violence erupted again in 2000 with the Second Intifada. Recent headlines about the crisis in Gaza now make the film even more relevant.
The Oslo Accords, secretly planned and executed out at an estate in the Norwegian countryside, marked the first time in 45 years that Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), met, discussed, and finally agreed, with one another’s representatives.
This resulted in the creation of semi-autonomous Arab territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where, unfortunately, the parties have continued fighting ever since, most recently in 2014 and then, of course, in the much covered war this month of May.
In light of the above events, the volatile, angry statements and grievances (both legit and illegit) from both sides, and the show’s celebration of a much needed cooperation and wish for peaceful co-existence feels strange.
One of the problems faced by Oslo–and which the movie is not entirely successful in resolving–is how to convey basic facts, and rudimentary information about the Middle East region to a diverse group of viewers, some of whom had not even been born in 1993. Indeed, there are several sequences that, while paying attention to historical detail, unfold in a manner that’s too straightforward, conventional, and borderline mechanical.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is anything but resolved, but Oslo shows why even this first step toward settlement was almost impossible to achieve.
“Oslo” Premieres on HBO and HBO Max at 5 p.m. Saturday, May 29.
Directed by Bartlett Sher.
Running Time: 118 minutes
