Postcards from the Verge

Strung between a majestic landscape of wide-angle black and white shots and the impurity of a composite universe of sound, Postcards from the Verge unfolds in five chapters as a sensory and abstract study of the Wall and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In Israel for the first time, Sebastian Mez decided to stay there for a few weeks instead of the four days initially planned as the landscapes evoked so many stories for him, encouraging him to film. Although the title describes the five chapters of the film as postcards, they are anything but chromos: after the orange glow of the prologue comes a highly subtle black-and-white. The photographic splendour of the first segment, “Beyond the Mountains”, is soon transformed, as if loaded, by the massive presence of a tank. In “Enter”, the second chapter, the Wall enters the frame as the film draws nearer to Jerusalem. Strung between a majestic landscape of wide-angle static shots and the impurity of varied formats and a composite universe of sound, Postcards from the Verge increasingly integrates into its form the omnipresent divide: first with the story of a young Palestinian who was noticed for his frequent crossings at the checkpoints and asked by the Israelis to become an informer. Then by a detail – the cartridge cases stuck into the fence on a piece of land where Palestinian schoolchildren play. To finish, the cinematic frame itself becomes split in this sensory yet abstract study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Charlotte Garson)