Director: Michael Winterbottom
Writer: Michael Winterbottom, Laurence Coriat, Paul Viragh
Stars: Irina Starshenbaum, Harry Melling, Douglas Booth
Synopsis: In this edge-of-your-seat thriller, a British police officer and a Jewish woman fall in love amidst the political turmoil of 1930s Tel Aviv.
In this horrible period in the Israeli-Palestine conflict comes a growing output of films about the conflict of the last two years and of the years before 1948 when Israel was founded. No Other Land, Palestine ‘36, and The Voice of Hind Rajab all bring to light the absolute horrorshow of the Middle East and what seems to be an infinite war with no end in sight. It remains an impossible subject to navigate without showing a tint of partiality, especially when Shosana, the latest from director Michael Winterbottom (The Trip series), made the movie prior to the events of October 2023. Only this summer was the film released in the United States in the most relevant of times.
It is based on the true story of the titular character, Shoshana Borochov (Irina Starshenbaum), who is a member of the Hagunah, the Jewish defense force in British Palestine (1917-1948) formed to protect Jewish settlers from Arab attacks. Shoshana is the daughter of a leading figure in the Zionist Labour movement and is well known, and while the Hagunah is illegal, the British tend to look the other way as the group tolerates them for controlling Arab violence. She starts a relationship with a British Palestine police officer, Tom Wilkin (Douglas Booth), who knows of her affiliation but keeps it a secret for his superiors. This becomes a challenge when a more radical group, the Irgun, emerges with a more blunt violent attempt to banish Arabs and the British from the country.
Avraham Stern (Aury Alby) is the noted leader of the Irgun who makes it clear through bombings and shootings that British occupation is not acceptable. His presence complicates things and forms a fissure between Wilkin, doing his job, and Shoshana, who is trying to keep the peace and wants to be part of Stern’s gang of terrorists. However, Wilkin’s partner (Harry Melling) is an officer willing to get rough with any suspect to go after Irgun and Hagunah members as they threaten British imperial plans. Their informants get killed one-by-one by Stern as these aggressive tactics get leaked out with who has been talking and Wilkin can’t protect them. It builds to a violent climax that, considering what happens after, shatters the whole peace of the land.
Winterbottom, who has directed comedy, drama, and war films – his previous film, Eleven Days In May, is a documentary he co-directed about an Israel bombing campaign in Gaza – had the difficult task of tackling all of these real-life details, but does a decent job. It’s not flashy, and the script he co-wrote focuses on the conflicting politics of the time. It isn’t about Jews versus Arabs, but the civil war between Jewish militants, moderates, and the British occupants from one side. Add to the fact that all of this happened amidst the backdrop of World War II, where while they know Jews have been rounded up by the Nazis, they had no idea of the “final solution,” which would only accelerate the urgency of a Jewish state after the war.
With the romantic section of the film, the movie has it take a backseat to the entire story. It lacks passion between the characters, not giving enough stakes to the danger of their relationship. Wilkin isn’t just with someone who’s a member of a criminal gang, but learns of a dangerous tie between Shoshana and the Irgun that puts his life and those of his countrymen in danger. Yet, what is something named important to the whole movie at the beginning becomes second-hand as the danger over the political situation boils up. The performances, as restrained, maintain their respective character’s emotional tone whether it be Melling giving Morton his cold, old-fashioned tone towards his subjects (the Jews and Arabs) or Starshenbaum’s balance between devotion to her cause and feelings for Wilkin.
Shoshana is a look at the past through the lens of a historical figure who saw everything from the beginning up to today. With archive footage to push the story along in the beginning and at the end, Winterbottom smoothly gives us a timeline through the British era where the volcano of religious nationalism was ready to erupt to what we see today. Even amongst the Jewish groups, how far they were willing to take it was split up, and the British had zero control of what was coming and couldn’t contain it. No love, even if there was passion for it in the film, was going to sustain the radical elements that were dooming it, and what we see today was always going to happen from the very beginning.
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