The Promise (2011)

Trying to follow the twists and turns in the Israel-Palestine conflict sometimes feels to me like starting a book 20 chapters in. I struggle to work out why the plot is at the points it's at, who the main players are, who I should be supporting... With this dilemma in mind I figured watching The Promise might help me go some way to figuring out my Gaza from my West Bank. The four part Channel 4 drama attempts to explain some of the causes of the differences and then puts them in a modern context. And in a brave move, the action is filmed in Israel itself. 

Christian Cooke plays Sergeant Leonard Matthews, a WW2 veteran and, in the 1940s, post war, he is part of an operation to settle fleeing European Jews in a new homeland of Israel. His half of The Promise tries to explain how the British treatment of the Jews, although trying to help them, fostered distrust and eventually made enemies of them. I'm oversimplifying wildly here, and I may even have read it wrong, but there is so much information and detail to impart in 4 packed episodes that I often struggled to keep up. 

In the modern day half of the drama, Claire Foy is Erin Matthews, Leonard's granddaughter, who is following his progress in his diaries. She also happens to be in Israel, where she is staying with her friend as she does her national service. As Erin tries to understand the situation her grandfather found himself in, she travels around modern Israel and the Palestinian territories with her friend's brother and his Arab friend. She tries to fulfil the promise that her grandfather made decades ago to return the key to an Arab's house to his family, and along the way is caught up in suicide bombings, shootings and the struggles of life on the borders between the territories. 

As a drama The Promise is thrilling stuff, peopled with an interesting cast. The only flaw in the whole really was Foy's portrayal of Erin, or at least the character of Erin, who's bolshy and rude, but then I suppose the drama wouldn't progress as quickly if she wasn't pushing soldiers around like she owns the place, or chaining herself to a building to try and prevent it being blown up. The historical scenes with Cooke were more emotional and impactful, but it was interesting to see how events in the past inform the struggles of the present. 

As a primer on the Israeli-Arab conflict The Promise raises as many questions as it answers. It felt like a rewatch would be rewarding, when I would be able to concentrate on the context more than the drama. From what I understood, neither side seems more to blame than the other for the continued violence and disharmony, or in other words, they're both as bad as each other. It would be wrong to tarnish all Arabs and Israelis with this reading though, and this is again something that the drama makes clear - contrary to news reports, not all residents are acting as martyrs or living in fear, most are getting on with living their lives. And that's as powerful a message as any to take from a brave, sweeping drama like The Promise.