Film Column – The Sand Castle

Directed by Matty Brown, The Sand Castle is a striking and emotive film with a suspenseful and provocative disposition.

CHILDREN don’t start wars and they have no power to end wars, but they are the ones who suffer the most.

This quote from UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell stayed with me while watching The Sand Castle on Netflix this week.

Haunted by scenes of devastation and bloodshed in Gaza over the last 15 months as Israel’s trail of terror has left thousands of children starving, orphaned, without limbs, traumatised and slaughtered, it is hard not to consider their pain and suffering.

More than 14,500 children have reportedly been killed, and virtually all 1.1 million children in Gaza are in urgent need of protection and mental health support.

There is no safe space in Gaza, nor any sense of stability for children, who lack essentials such as food, safe water, medical supplies, and warm clothes as winter temperatures drop. Preventable diseases continue to rapidly spread, including more than 800 cases of hepatitis, and more than 300 cases of chickenpox. Thousands of children are suffering from skin rashes and acute respiratory infections. Winter weather is now adding to children’s suffering.

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It is with these images ingrained in my psyche that I sat down to watch Netflix’s latest offering at the weekend.

Directed by Matty Brown, The Sand Castle is a striking and emotive film with a suspenseful and provocative disposition.

The film opens with a stirring scene that could have come from the cutting room floor of a Benetton commercial.

The free-spirited and imaginative young Jana (Riman Al Rafeea) is enveloped by a large blue cloth that seems to evoke the Mediterranean Sea and being lost in an expansive and lonesome space.

“This is my land. Our paradise. Hidden from everyone. It doesn’t know we’re here,” she abruptly tells the viewer.

The Sand Castle for all its beauty and artful craft has an ominous shadow that lingers, hiding in the background, waiting, slowly and patiently, to raise its ugly head at the film’s end. This, will not be to everyone’s liking, and I found it frustrating in parts, but the final reveal more than made up for these oversights.

(3/5)

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