Busan 2014 Review: The Wonderfully Surreal SELF-MADE Has More Than A Few Screws Loose

This is vastly complicated by the locations where the women reside: Israel and Palestine. The first woman Michal (Sarah Adler) is a famous artist residing in Israel, an autobiographical slant on the director herself as later scenes reveal an almost meta-commentary on her previous films. The film starts with a long take of her slumbering next to her husband before her bed abruptly breaks and she bashes her head. 

This oddly jarring and blackly comic event spurs a delivery order at a faux-Ikea corporation for a replacement bed. Michal's day gets increasingly strange as she waits for the bed. Reporters, photographers and lobster chefs constantly interrupt her morning and it is quickly revealed she is not entirely sure who she is, relying on these strangers to piece together her mega success due to the previous bump on the head. The whole scenario is treated as a surreal nightmare; everything feels off, nothing comes across as quite real but for the viewer Michal's predicament is bizarrely hilarious.

Cut to a vastly different scenario as Nadine (Samira Saraya) leaves her hovel-like home in Palestine, bopping along awkwardly to some striking Arabic rap before being stopped at the checkpoint by zealous soldiers. Nadine is a simpleton; she lacks any social grace and has to leave cookie crumbs to remember how to get back home, all intentional choices on the director's part to emphasize confusion of identity, residence and beliefs. 

There are, in fact, multiple swipes the director makes during the film. In one scene, practically a sketch, a German film crew visits Michal's house for an interview. Here they ask asinine questions, such as "Is peace in the Middle East possible?" This was supposedly the same treatment Shira received after the premiere of an older film. None of this feels forced, and the most serious issues of the conflict are handled uniquely by the director. Her intelligent direction and surreal slant add another layer to the already prickly topic.

Later, when Michal does receive the bed, it is missing a screw. She calls the company, a gargantuan complex that parodies capitalism, and the person in charge of the screws, who is of course Nadine, is promptly fired.

On her way out of the building, the film cuts to Michal, who also needs to leave her home. The change-over happens at the checkpoint gate as a soldier (also female) hiding her soft side and a lot of resentment, is driven into a rage that mysteriously and suddenly changes everything. This alternate reality of swapped personas is accompanied by some extremely memorable moments that pepper this already insane film; from a waltzing scene at the checkpoint, to the cartoonish razing of a Palestinian city.

The film won the Camera d'Or at the Cannes film festival, which is no surprise given the stunningly colourful and purposeful mise en scene. The Israel blue and white is an aesthetic far beyond what the camera provides; informing almost every scene with a real-world statement regarding the occupation. It also provides the characters with real depth. It is frankly jarring to see a casual depiction of a jean wearing, hip-hop loving Palestinian or an ultra-successful and chic Israeli woman.

The point that Shira gets across so well is that of subverted identities; that the individual matters and this is given a wonderfully meta slant when they change identities and fall into extreme behaviour. Ultimately both women, and every character, and thus every citizen on both sides of the conflict, is self-made; far beyond the metaphor of a broken bed or conflicting anxieties, and all of this is relayed in an hilarious, witty and fantastically surreal way. See this film.