Early, we can talk about important things- religion, politics, and as usual my vocabulary lets me down. I try to explain, for example, that I don't support violence in Palestine, that I could never respect a terrorist. But my argument just ends up sounding like wavering and uncertainty, my Arabic still deficient. Abdullah tells me I can't understand because I've only lived a comfortable life, I haven't been involved. He's never been under occupation, never been in the intifada either, I tell him, but it makes no difference. This isn't difficult, this is just conversation. I often find that people farthest from the situation in Palestine are the most violent about it, and always think they understand it better than the Palestinians.
It becomes difficult when we're sitting in the room at the end of the night. He asks if I don't mind being in a dangerous situation to make the film. I tell him I'm prepared, I'm an intelligent guy who thinks he knows danger when he sees it, I can always leave. He asks me what's more important- the film or him. The most imporant thing, I tell him, is safety- his and mine. Abdullah seems to have taken everything very personally now, acting very quickly as though we've known each other for years, and this makes me uncomfortable. The film is my work now, I tell him, this is true. But it's a film about his life, and that's more important.
I didn't expect this to be easy, I didn't expect to be able to tell the story of an episode in someone's life and not be involved. I could leave at any time and not feel any fear or regret, this isn't as serious for me as it is for Abdullah. Questions come so quickly to him: what is our relationship, are we like brothers or friends? I trust you, that's what's important. We don't love each other like brothers, but I trust you. I don't know the right things to say, Abdullah clearly doesn't really understand what I'm doing. Maybe he thinks I'm just following him for a ride, for the experience.
I think he could leave at any point if he felt afraid, if he didn't like me around any more. Maybe I want him to leave, this would be easier, or if I just left and said it was too much for me. I just left and said I had work to do in Casablanca, then it wouldn't be so heavy any more. I wouldn't have to imagine what might happen to us, or deal with Abdullah asking if we were like brothers now. But there's the story keeping me interested- it should be easier, like I said before, to think of it as moving compositions. This is responsibility for someone else's life.
