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‘it must be heaven’: film review | cannes 2019.

From Nazareth to Paris and on to North America, Palestinian filmmaker-actor Elia Suleiman searches for the future of his native land in 'It Must Be Heaven.'

By Deborah Young

Deborah Young

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Filmmaker and actor Elia Suleiman uses his own face and body to express the soul of Palestine in his films, and nowhere more so than in his droll new comedy, It Must Be Heaven . Fans of his trilogy comprising Chronicle of a Disappearance , Divine Intervention , which won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2002, and The Time That Remains , which competed on the Croisette in 2009, will welcome with open arms the art house rollout of this new French-German-Canadian-Turkish co-prod. It’s no surprise that it contains the same close observation of paradoxical human behavior that made him famous, but the focus this time around is on the whole world, which in Suleiman’s persuasive view has become “a microcosm of Palestine.”

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‘It Must Be Heaven’ Review: Elia Suleiman’s Palestinian Satire Explains Why He Doesn’t Make More Movies

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Elia Suleiman is in every scene of “It Must Be Heaven,” but he only speaks four words. The writer-director-star finds himself in a New York taxi cab in the midst of a globe-trotting journey after fleeing his drab routine back home. Asked where he comes from, he replies, “Nazareth,” then clarifies: “I am Palestinian.” And that’s pretty much all you need to know. For the rest of the movie, Suleiman’s deadpan stare says it all, as the slapstick auteur’s latest installment in his ongoing chronicle of Palestinian identity settles into his usual playful routine. Once again, the Chaplinesque Suleiman drifts through an ambivalent world, and his solemn expression does the bulk of the talking.

Suleiman’s always a reliable charmer, with a penchant for funneling the language of Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton into moving-image editorials about his troubled homeland. However, a decade has passed since his last insightful riff on occupation with the haunting meditation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with “The Time That Remains,” and “It Must Be Heaven” addresses that gap head-on. This poignant, minor-key work from the only major filmmaker to carry the torch of silent comedy into the 21st century is rich with feeling, even as it enters a self-reflexive zone that sometimes distracts from the legitimate concerns at its core. As Suleiman wanders from Paris to New York, “It Must Be Heaven” amounts to a meta film that explains why he doesn’t make movies more often, and presents a very solid case for why he should.

The opening of “It Must Be Heaven” is a perfect distillation of Suleiman charm: The star — a little grayer, his gait a little slower, but with the same unmistakable sad eyes — roams his property and the surrounding quiet neighborhood, absorbing the malaise around him. In the mornings, a man casually steals lemons from his yard, and sometimes just hacks away at the tree. (It doesn’t take much to parse the clunky metaphor of pilfered land, but Suleiman’s visually-driven storytelling doesn’t exactly embrace the values of subtlety.) He’s surrounded by bad vibes: neighbors trading lame insults into the night, crude confrontations with Israeli thugs at the local bar, a crazed local wandering the streets proclaiming nonsense. Suleiman gazes at each of these events with his usual downcast look, but this time, the cumulative effect is a call to action. As the music swells, Suleiman packs his bags and hits the road.

Mileage will vary on the first passages of this whimsical travelogue, which finds Suleiman venturing from Paris to New York in a rocky attempt to pitch the very movie unfolding here. But the filmmaker (aided by brilliant cinematographer Sofian El Fani, whose credits include “Timbuktu” and “Blue Is the Warmest Color”) has such conviction in this droll approach that “It Must Be Heaven” instantly settles into an appealing rhythm. En route to the airport, Suleiman pulls over to stand in the middle of a golden field, and stares out at a yawning sea. It’s a magical encapsulation of the escape fantasy that Suleiman magnifies with the journey to come, as he starts to realize that nowhere he goes can replicate his intimate affections for his homeland.

Suleiman’s fixation on the Palestinian in exile shares some DNA with “Synonyms,” Israeli director Nadav Lapid’s recent acclaimed film about an Israeli adrift in Europe. But that darker, enigmatic effort has provoked powerful audience responses to its controversial approach, while Suleiman’s wistful tone is more straightforward in its aims. As Suleiman arrives in Paris, he finds an equally alienating city, where Europeans go about their days oblivious to the troubles of the wider world. Suleiman’s eye for visual gags are hit-or-miss, but he scores some vintage Suleimanian gags here, including an amusing bit involving police officers on seaways and a wry dig at a country’s generous healthcare system, with an uproarious segment that finds him watching a homeless man receive food from an ambulance as if he’s dining in an upscale eatery.

These fragmentary observations prove that Suleiman has a lot on his mind, and has been waiting for the right moment to pull it all together. “It Must Be Heaven” explores that challenge in witty referential terms, though they may strike some viewers as insider baseball. The filmmaker winds up in the offices of a French producer (played by Wild Bunch sales maverick Vincent Maraval) who shoots down the concept for “It Must Be Heaven” in a rambling monologue that leaves nothing up for discussion. “We wouldn’t want to do something too didactic,” he says. “That type of film wouldn’t be very commercial.” The irony, of course, is that Suleiman seems to be sealing his fate and celebrating the opportunity to get away with his vision at the same time.

In any case, Paris doesn’t work out, so he heads to New York for a similarly meandering passage filled with oddball encounters. At another producer’s office, he runs into Gael Garcia Bernal, who explains to a colleague Suleiman’s intentions of making a comedy about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The response: “It already sounds funny.”

While the observation may seem facetious in context, it makes perfect to anyone familiar with Suleiman’s routine since it solidified with his wondrous “Divine Intervention” in 2002. The filmmaker’s clever imagistic storytelling is steeped in one weighty observation after another wrapped in absurdist clothing. From a surreal encounter with a sparrow that comes through his window to a panel discussion at an Arab American forum drowned in robotic applause, Suleiman keeps finding new ways to apply his inscrutable impressions to new ways of evaluating his environment disconnect. The result is always the very particular melancholic humor that Suleiman thrives on.

The movie falters in one misconceived, sexist montage, which finds Suleiman eyeballing one woman after another as he takes in Paris’ sexy vibes. But if the filmmaker has been reduced to a pervy old man, that itself sits well with this complex look at the emotions of an artist untethered from his place in the world.

While “It Must Be Heaven” doesn’t exactly find a solution to the crisis of Palestinian identity, it does stand out as a somewhat more hopeful work than the director’s previous outings. In the movie’s insightful final stretch, Suleiman comes to terms with a new generation of Palestinians moving faster, and partying harder, into a future that he simply can’t fathom. And he finds some paths toward empowerment, none better than an outrageous gag involving a TSA agent’s invasive wand, which recalls the moment Suleiman pole-vaulted over an Israeli-Palestinian border wall in “The Time That Remains.” Suleiman positions these jokes as the ultimate fantasy, a means of making peace with an untenable situation and coming to terms with the idea that even an imperfect home is preferable to having none at all.

Suleiman closes “It Must Be Heaven” with a dedication to art critic John Berger, who died a few months before the movie’s Cannes premiere. Berger’s seminal text “Ways of Seeing” fixated on the way cultural ideology permeates images that we often take for granted. Suleiman elevates this concept to a higher plane, with inventing visual language so loaded with meaning it renders words useless. It’s also a warm, inquisitive approach that makes his world-weary mindset approachable. Suleiman may be upset about the state of the world, but at the expense of its entertainment value. By personalizes his hardships, he makes it possible to engage with his roving insights, and emerge from the other side wincing with laughter from bitter truths.

“It Must Be Heaven” premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution.

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It Must Be Heaven Reviews

Suleiman’s comic drama on Palestinian roots and identity...

Full Review | Oct 26, 2023

As a Palestinian who makes funny films, Elia Suleiman has his job cut out, but this gentle, observational comedy about our fractious world is on message, and at the same time a pleasure to watch.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2022

The face of Suleiman's passive observer - dismissive, truculent and weary - is more expressive than in previous films. He may have succeeded in escaping Palestine, but he eventually realizes that he has failed to escape the Palestine inside of him.

Full Review | Jul 3, 2021

It Must Be Heaven is a brave example of the kind of political dissent that occurs outside of revolutions and riots - the quiet, timid kind of struggle that is constantly coursing beneath the surface of any society, occupied or not.

Full Review | Jun 30, 2021

From Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, this is a witty exploration of the points where culture and religion collide and overlap.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 25, 2021

A memorably surreal shot of tanks rolling down a deserted Parisian street encapsulates the film's rare blend of delightful absurdism and heartbreak.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 24, 2021

An outsider's view of Paris and New York provides entertaining sights in the latest film by the Palestinian director Elia Suleiman...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 22, 2021

Suleiman is a master of slow-burning, cumulative humour; this is the kind of comedy that creeps up on you.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 20, 2021

The deep blackness of his humour melds with the bleakness of the situation, but this feels less focused here.

Full Review | Jun 17, 2021

[Director Elia Suleiman's] latest is at once a charming, deadpan study of national identities, an idiosyncratic love letter to his home and an unvarnished tribute to life's universal absurdities.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 17, 2021

The film proceeds as a deadpan joke book.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 16, 2021

It Must Be Heaven is a finely crafted, unique movie that revels in its absurdity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 29, 2021

It Must Be Heaven is a gem.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 30, 2020

As comedies go, It Must Be Heaven is not exactly laugh-out-loud, but it's weirdly seductive.

Full Review | Jul 31, 2020

Suleiman questions the notions of home and belonging by employing the universal language of comedy. Thus, the film is neither nation-specific nor culture-specific but acts as a synecdoche to much larger national and cultural problems.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 23, 2020

The mood is superbly sustained by emptying most of the locations of people. It's a soulful sort of comedy, rather than a thigh-slapper, but thoughtful is always better than its alternative.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 6, 2020

Suleiman's whimsical brand of observational comedy has been compared to that of the French master, Jacques Tati, and there are certainly similarities, though the Palestinian is even more minimalistic.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 2, 2020

Suleiman once again plays that silent, impassive and observant individual who now travels the streets of three different nationalities with the sole purpose of showing us the cultural and socio-political similarities they share. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 27, 2020

Vignettes and sight gags abound - cops on drill begin to dance, a bird keeps landing on a keyboard. Some moments are delicately playful, others laugh-out funny, with recurrent awareness of armed, uniformed authority figures.

Full Review | Original Score: A-minus | Jun 11, 2020

Adopting a gentle mode, much of the film is made up of witty visual skits...Thankfully, Elia Suleiman keeps his focus on the funny as he meekly observes the little ironies, absurdities and bewildering acts of human nature that surround him wherever he is.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 11, 2020

IT MUST BE HEAVEN: Maybe Not Heavenly, But An Absurd Delight

I’ll be right there: if parenthood were a modern indie, the monkey: trailer 1, omni loop: trailer 1, alien: romulus: a love letter to the alien franchise, with mixed results, woman of the hour trailer 1, the becomers: what’s weirder, aliens or 2020, kraven the hunter: trailer 1, saturday night trailer 1, this is no game: why ready or not still matters, rebel ridge trailer 1, alien: romulus: not quite stellar, his three daughters trailer 1.

It Must Be Heaven is a comedic collection of vignettes brought a satirical edge – and maybe even slightly cynical undertone – by filmmaker Elia Suleiman . Blending the Palestinian filmmaker’s own worldview with absurd skits (evocative of Roy Andersson) and modern geopolitics, Suleiman ’s film may not be as insightful as it thinks but it consistently amuses whilst maintaining an air of intelligent aloofness.

The director also stars as a fictionalised version of himself, beginning in his homeland of Palestine and then following him to Paris and New York in attempts to get his latest film made. Along the way, Suleiman silently – he speaks once in the film – observes and interacts with people of ridiculous hypocrisy and ludicrous obliviousness.

Absurdly humorous

Throughout the film, connective elements are interspersed with more standalone comical segments. Although plenty pack a message, most of these vignettes are highlighting the absurdity of little microcultures that develop. The increasingly ridiculous efforts of people to secure seating around one of the bassins in Paris’s Tuileries Garden builds beautifully from a reasonable starting point. Suleiman is frequently placed in a symmetrical frame, with him or others moving through each in such a way as to not disrupt said equilibrium.

Even if Suleiman ’s style has drawn Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton comparisons, the cartoon style farces most clearly feel akin to in Roy Andersson’s work (another modern Tati-phile). Apply a slightly cooler colour grading or a wider angle lens and a number would fit quite neatly into You, The Living or Songs from the Second Floor .

A sense of belonging without ownership

A sense of being adrift is communicated through the lead character’s global bumbling. Even sitting on his home balcony, there is never really a sense of ownership to go with the sense of belonging. Suleiman continuously observes a neighbour undertaking the theft of lemons, with the appropriation undertaken with varying degrees of competence and care. In New York, a taxi driver marvels at the idea of a real-life Palestinian in his cab. His awe makes it sound like someone from Suleiman ’s homeland is a mythical creature, yet a film producer declares the Nazarene’s film “isn’t Palestinian enough”.

Further emphasising the sense of remove is the situations Suleiman ’s character finds himself in Palestine and Paris. On both occasions, quite purposefully mirrored (narratively this time, rather than visually), he finds himself on the edges of unrest; calmly going about his day as there is some sort of protest or rally – perhaps even disorder – taking place. This outsider element once again gives a sense of not being fully involved with any of the locations he goes to. Combined the aforementioned visual symmetry and the deserted nature of many of the locations, it heightens the sense of drift and disconnect that permeates the film.

Slightly too c*cksure

The film, as amusing as it frequently is, doesn’t necessarily offer as much insight as it thinks beyond Suleiman ’s reactions to foreigners moronically reacting to his citizenship status (or lack thereof). In particular, the New York segments seem content to poke fun at Americans’ lack of knowledge of Palestine as a concept, without offering something – comic or otherwise – that might prod at the causal origin rather than the ignorant terminus. Gael Garcia Bernal ’s brief appearance, trying to push (in something of a half-assed manner) past the indifference of the American professionals, has the same slightly smug feeling.

Not quite heaven, but flying high

There is no doubt that Suleiman knows his audience, and as such it can be argued It Must Be Heaven perhaps plays to the gallery rather than pushing out of a comfort zone. Nevertheless, the film balances wit and amusement with a melancholic, maybe even unfulfilled, sense of belonging. The end result maybe isn’t heaven, but it certainly soars high above the janky chairs scattered around the Tuileries Garden.

It Must Be Heaven has screened at numerous festivals in the UK and USA, and has no set release date yet.

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It Must Be Heaven

Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine. Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine. Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.

Elia Suleiman
Tarik Kopty
Kareem Ghneim
38 User reviews
76 Critic reviews
68 Metascore
6 wins & 17 nominations

Top cast 99+

Old Neighbour
Young Neighbour
Waiter in Restaurant

Brother 1 in Restaurant
Brother 2 in Restaurant
Sister in Restaurant
Bedouin Woman
(as Asmaa Azaizy)

Man in Metro

French Producer

Ambulance Woman

Ambulance Man
Homeless Man
Japanese Woman
Japanese Man

Tarot Reader

Femen in Central Park
(as Raïa Haïdar)
Master of Ceremony
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Trivia Official submission of Palestine for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020.

Professor : First... Welcome to New York, It's good to have you here at our school. I will start by asking you to share with us your experience as a filmmaker and to speak about the ways of being and feeling that have or have not permitted you to achieve... the conditions of becoming what we call a citizen of the world. Is you sense, your identity... of place a thing of the past? Has your nomadic existence extinguished your love of one place? And extended it to a love of all places? In other words are you a perfect stranger?

User reviews 38

MarcoParzivalRocha
Jul 29, 2020
How long is It Must Be Heaven? Powered by Alexa
December 4, 2019 (France)
Occupied Palestinian Territory
AFAC - The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (Lebanon)
Le Pacte (France)
De repente, el paraíso
Nazareth, Israel (ES's home town)
Rectangle Productions
Nazira Films
Pallas Film
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Runtime 1 hour 42 minutes

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'It Must Be Heaven' Review: This Hopeful, Inclusive Film Uses Comedy To Explore The Human Condition [Cannes]

There's something to be said about the blissfulness of ignorance. Festivals are prime places to be able to go into a film cold, often not even knowing the title, let alone the subject and synopsis. Give me a movie and I'll apprehend, no matter what, and hopefully find something to fall for. This rarefied way of seeing Elia Suleiman 's It Must Be Heaven proved heavenly, and there's perhaps no better way of seeing this charming, sweet and intelligent film. I'm aware that notion is defeated by this very review, but for many, there may be more familiarity with Suleiman and his work. Subsequently I learned of his usual shtick – the director often plays a Harold Lloyd -like character who silently drifts through his films, commenting wordlessly on events that evoke his Palestinian heritage and the travails of his people. Blissfully unaware of this conceit, I saw the events for the first third of It Must Be Heaven as evocative, deeply metaphorical vignettes about conflict and concessions. We see the (mostly silent) character bemusedly gazing out as his neighbor comes to take a few lemons from trees on his side of a fence. The responsibilities increase – soon the tree is being pruned in order for the fruits to get bigger, and then the plant is watered, all while suggesting that this is being done for mutual benefit. Other scenes see increasingly surreal police presence, with choreographed dance-like processions on horseback, on gyro scooters, rollerblades, and even tanks. The central character (named "ES") travels to Paris where he sits and watches women of all nationalities and hues walk by, wordlessly enjoying the myriad of cultures on display and their shared beauty. It's only when he takes a meeting in Paris and they talk about making a film about the Palestinian political situation did all the metaphors fall into place, a wonderfully pure experience that proves the very point of the film's globetrotting – that the movie is far more universal than provincial, speaking to the surrealism of conflict regardless of region while still very much articulating a strong, inclusive political point of view. ES travels to New York (well, Montreal playing New York) where he meets with Gael Garcia Bernal who is helping him to tackle a film on "peace in the Middle East," while a producer blithely points out how challenging this will be. There are minefields on many sides of this issue, and what makes the film remarkably effective is how it uses droll comedic moments to silently make larger ideological points (Chaplin, of course, was the master of this). The inclusion of Nina Simone and especially Leonard Cohen further emphasizes the sense of longing for sanity in an insane world. Scenes where shoppers are festooned with weaponry are macabre and silly, yet completely in keeping with life in that part of the world. Of course, the larger questions are left unanswered – why would people be armed to the teeth while shopping for food? Recent slaughters in grocery stores in the very country where the film is playing provide stark answers. Yet the point isn't to make some small contribution to the dialogue, but to actually bring people together to see the shifting perspectives, to recognize the surrealism behind the shared horrors. Naturally the metaphors lean heavily on the militarized law enforcement and encroaching neighbors, but so too is the maudlin nature of ES's own community, evidenced by the ridiculousness of a panel of diasporic individuals so large that a single clap is warranted when introducing the voices. The film is dedicated to Palestine, and with its warm and generous heart, it's hard not to be swayed by Suleiman and his longing for a quiet, contemplative sanity while chaos reigns around his character. This is an inclusive vision, and all the more powerful for it. It's a hopeful vision, but one not free from cynicism. It's a unique and lovely film for any audience, a comical film that's far from superficial, dealing with hugely complex human and political issues in a non-didactic way. It Must Be Heaven shows how comedy, even with so light a touch, can be the most effective way at examining the human condition. With a wider, more transnational scope, Suleiman's vision is both more general and specific, a paradox perfectly in keeping with the surrealism on display. It's a sweet film about a bitter situation, and a sign that through art the loudest voices can often be the ones that say a lot while speaking nary a word. /Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

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It Must Be Heaven

Sharp and surreal humour just about stops this light-hearted comedy from floating away.

Time Out says

This deadpan, extremely dry Palestinian comedy takes us from Nazareth to Paris to New York City, and everywhere you look the streets are often eerily empty – they’re real-world stages ready for one of writer-director-actor Elia Suleiman’s lightly absurdist gags. Suleiman’s films, including ‘Divine Intervention’ and ‘The Time That Remains’, take a thoughtful, comic-book approach to life, and are both sort-of funny and sort-of political. Now in his late fifties, Suleiman has established a style that’s fully present in this loosely connected series of vignettes, which see him appear as an almost entirely silent, quizzical version of himself. He often looks into the camera and always seems just one beat away from raising an eyebrow and sighing at us and the world.

We begin and end in Palestine, but it’s the chapters in France and the United States that have the most impact, as Suleiman’s alter ego visits movie production companies in an attempt to make a new film. In France, he’s told his films need to be ‘more Palestinian’, while in NYC he’s barely acknowledged and accompanied by actor-director Gael Garcia Bernal, who is himself wrestling with an offer to make an English-language film version of the Hernán Cortés story. The best moments offer surreal humour comparable to the films of the Swedish director Roy Andersson: tanks rolling through the streets of Paris on Bastille Day; French cops dancing in unison on Segways; everyday folks wearing guns on their backs in a Whole Foods-style NY supermarket; or Suleiman trying to write on his laptop while constantly pushing away an encroaching little bird, like the moving arm of an old typewriter. It’s a great visual joke.

Not everything in ‘It Must Be Heaven’ has the same impact. Suleiman leans heavily on his own expressionless gaze – and how much more can we be expected to read into it? Always around the corner is a moment that indirectly reminds us of Suleiman’s homeland and status as an artist wrestling with whether or not – or how – to represent the situation in Palestine in his art. Much of the film offers the bemused outlook of the wide-eyed traveller, and the tone is so light and unassuming that it threatens to float away at points. Yet there are enough sharp and amusing moments to keep it tethered to the ground. It’s the comedy of a world-weary clown.

Cast and crew

Director: Elia Suleiman
Screenwriter: Elia Suleiman
Elia Suleiman
Gael García Bernal
Ali Suliman

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‘It Must Be Heaven’ Film Review: Palestinian Comedy Finds Absurdity Around the World

Cannes 2019: The human comedy, says Elia Suleiman’s first film in a decade, recognizes no nationalities and encompasses us all

More than a few festival-goers must have woken up in rough shape after last night’s long trip to the club with Abdellatif Kechiche, and to their credit, the Cannes Film Festival seems to have taken that into account.

Maybe that’s why the festival kicked off its final day of screenings on Friday with so gentle and winning a film as Elia Suleiman’s “It Must Be Heaven.” With his first feature in 10 years, the Palestinian director returns with another exploration of nationality and identity that explores those questions with deadpan humor and poker-faced comic invention.

As in his three previous films, Suleiman takes the lead, playing a version of himself as channeled through the comic personas of Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati and, sure, Mr. Bean. Save for one line of dialogue, Suleiman anchors the film as a quiet observer who takes in the absurdities of the world around him and responds with a cockeyed look or quick double-take that speaks 10 times louder than words.

As a director, Suleiman knows how to compose the frame to get the most out of each gag, and as a performer, he recognizes that his arched eyebrows are powerful tools of comedy and employs them as such. Those are helpful assets for an easy-going film that coolly ambles forward as a series of short sketches and vignettes, while maintaining a fairly detached tone.

But don’t mistake Suleiman’s droll approach as evidence of dispassion. Quite to the contrary, in fact, because he uses that flattening style to make his larger point. “It Must Be Heaven” finds the filmmaker/character leaving his home in Palestine to live in Paris and New York, only to find those big city meccas wrought with the same absurdities that mark his native Nazareth.

As he stands before a sign advertising “the human comedy” in Paris, his thesis cannot be clearer. The human comedy knows no borders, he argues. It recognizes no nationalities and it encompasses us all — so it doesn’t matter where you go, because there you are.

And in some ways, that’s the only way you can live when your own nationality is so hard to quantify. Suleiman is a Palestinian filmmaker, but “It Must Be Heaven” is a French-German-Canadian-Turkish production, because it’s not so easy to make a Palestinian film.

Hell, it wasn’t so easy to make this film, we learn in a series of very funny sequences where Suleiman meets with well-known film business figures like Wild Bunch CEO Vincent Maraval, “Matthias and Maxime” producer Nancy Grant and actor Gael Garcia Bernal – all of whom had other projects in Cannes this year, as fate would have it – to pitch this very project.

Maraval gets the best punchline when he turns down the project (in real life, he is handling sales) because “it’s not Palestinian enough.” Onscreen, Suleiman winces, and the Cannes audience burst into appreciative, knowing laughter. Was the joke on the character, on Maraval, or on everyone gathered together in the room? The answer is all of the above. That’s the human comedy.

It Must Be Heaven shows a Palestinian in Paris searching for salvation

In his latest film as director and deadpan star Elia Suleiman retains his highly formal style, but there is a weariness to the gags of a Palestinian beset by Western stereotypes.

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▶︎ It Must Be Heaven is screening in UK cinemas and streaming on BFI Player and Curzon Home Cinema from 18 June.

In It Must Be Heaven, Palestinian film-maker Elia Suleiman – as usual playing a version of himself – visits the office of a Parisian production company. The French producer – played by real-life producer and sales agent Vincent Maraval – tells Suleiman that he likes his film proposal, but won’t invest in it. Although he wouldn’t expect a Palestinian film to be didactic or exotic, nevertheless he feels that Suleiman’s script isn’t “Palestinian enough”: it features episodes that don’t seem specifically Palestinian, that “could even take place here”. Indeed, much of It Must Be Heaven does take place in Paris, as well as New York; in his fourth feature, Suleiman has ventured out internationally, as if to show that he can escape the cultural assumptions that beset Palestinian artists. Yet he also shows himself encountering something of Palestine wherever he goes.

In three earlier films, beginning with Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996), Suleiman evolved a distinctive style, his features comprising strings of deadpan vignettes offering more or less overt satirical commentary on the Palestinian condition, with the director playing a version of himself, a rueful observer of the tensions, eccentricities and sometimes violence around him. The Time That Remains (2009), combining modern Palestinian history with an autobiographical thread, is his most ambitious achievement in this vein. But It Must Be Heaven, which takes a gentler, even whimsical approach, feels somewhat flat, as if both Suleiman’s quietly mordant humour and his persona are played out.

The opening section sees Suleiman in familiar territory, his character – let’s call him ‘Elia’ – by turns encountering a neighbour who coolly appropriates the Suleiman family lemon tree; the neighbour’s elderly father; and two Palestinian men confronting a restaurateur who has compromised their sister by putting wine in a sauce. Tension defines everyday life in Nazareth, as in the farcical prelude, with a bishop infuriated by finding his procession locked out of church. The ambient tension is only fleetingly shown in explicit political terms: notably, when two Israeli soldiers are seen checking out their sunglasses in their car’s mirror, before a young woman is revealed blindfolded in the back.

Disposing of assorted impedimenta from, presumably, his dead parents (the film is dedicated partly to the memory of Suleiman’s parents), Elia visits Paris where he seems to find, per the title, a more heavenly state of affairs, suggested by a leeringly clichéd sequence in which various women of seraphic beauty (and one or two men) strut past him in slow motion. But even here he finds stress, enduring the basilisk glare of a tattooed punk (a preposterously cartoonish Grégoire Colin). He sees Parisians fight for chairs in the Tuileries gardens, and an ominous line of tanks roll past the august Place des Victoires (for many scenes, Suleiman procured the luxury of deserted Paris streets). He also suffers the annoyance of a Japanese couple mistaking him for their contact ‘Brigitte-san’ – a hackneyed riff on cultural misunderstanding that is one of the clumsiest things here.

In the US , too, many gags, however elegantly staged, feel wearily obvious: a New York where everyone, even the hip bourgeoisie, carries arms, from handguns to bazookas. There’s a painful encounter with a gauche African-American taxi driver, amazed to meet a real Palestinian (“My man’s from Nazareth… Jesus of Nazareth!”). It is in New York that Palestine really comes home to Elia: in Central Park, he sees police chase a young woman, a Femen protester with angel wings, breasts painted with the Palestinian flag; and glumly sits on a panel at ‘the Arab-American Forum for Palestine’, where no one gets to talk because the audience clapping takes too long. He then seeks insight from a tarot reader who tells him, “There will be Palestine… But it ain’t gonna happen in your lifetime.”

Suleiman’s persona as a peripatetic observer of the world’s madness gives continuity to the film’s content and its highly formal style, with Elia at the centre of a string of episodes presented in stripped-down, sometimes symmetrical mise en scène. Now white-bearded and professorial in glasses and hat, Elia – with his Hulot-like habit of holding his hands behind his back – is a solitary onlooker rather than a participant, and always silent (except in the New York cab where he announces, “I’m Palestinian”).

But in this film, the character, at first the familiar quizzical innocent, can also seem tetchy and disapproving – notably in that unfortunate Japanese scene, but also in one where, going through a check at a New York airport, he grabs the official’s metal detector, uses it for some impossible, CGI -aided martial arts moves (recalling the Palestinian ninja in Suleiman’s 2002 film Divine Intervention ) and walks on with a look of righteous contempt. The consistent theme of It Must Be Heaven is that the world, not just Elia’s home, is a funny place, but the film is funny in a way that feels tired, often mirthless, and – as reflected in his screen persona – just a little testily supercilious.

The Time That Remains: Elia Suleiman

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It Must Be Heaven

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Release date

18 th June 2021

Palestinian comedy It Must Be Heaven follows its director (Elia Suleiman) from Nazareth to Paris to New York, silently observing the world around him in all its absurdist folly. Suleiman cuts a smart, whimsical figure in his hat and glasses, somewhere between Buster Keaton and Mr Benn. A full hour passes before the viewer discovers that the purpose of his trip is to secure funding for his new film (this film), and then another ten minutes until one hears him speak.

One character rejects the film for being “not Palestinian enough”; another introduces Suleiman as “a Palestinian filmmaker but he makes funny films” (the expectation being that he would make worthy political dramas). If it means anything, It Must Be Heaven is about conformity. Every frame is even and symmetrical, but their contents are skewed. Through the protagonist’s bemused eyes, one sees a series of comic vignettes – almost Trigger Happy TV -style micro-satires of modern city life.

Some are surrealist sight gags, such as the Palestinian waiter who presents Suleiman with a wine bottle for his approval, despite it not having a label. Others are more direct parodies of modernity, such as the Parisian police weaving around on electric unicycles or the Americans shopping for groceries with automatic weapons slung over their shoulders. Mostly though they convey the strange similarity of all three locations, confirming the “not Palestinian enough” guy’s accusation that the film could be taking place anywhere.

Recurring subjects include street cleaners, buskers and emergency services, though they never seem to be doing much of use. In Paris a set of armed officers takes measurements of the café where the director sits; in New York they chase a “Free Palestine” protestor through a procession of women exercising with prams to a Leonard Cohen song.

The result is quietly political and oddly comforting, the clean, balanced photography mirroring the gentle geometry of Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson . This clever use of symmetry and silence makes for a charming, hopeful and nonconforming picture that finds continuity in the absurd.

It Must Be Heaven is released in select cinemas on 18 th June 2021.

Watch the trailer for It Must Be Heaven here:

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CANNES 2019 Competition

Review: It Must Be Heaven

by Kaleem Aftab

25/05/2019 - CANNES 2019: Elia Suleiman is in competition with a hilarious, absurdist take on what it means to be a Palestinian

Elia Suleiman is a firm favourite at the Cannes Film Festival . It Must Be Heaven [ + see also: trailer interview: Elia Suleiman film profile ] is his fourth feature to play at the gathering in the South of France, and his third in competition. Some things never change: Suleiman is again playing a silent version of himself on screen (which to anyone who knows the talkative director is ironic in itself) and looks at the chaos of life going on around him with bemusement. There is a hint of Jacques Tati in the tone and style of his work, and this new effort, with its tableaux-style mise-en-scène, has a touch of Roy Andersson.

It Must Be Heaven is Suleiman’s funniest and most accessible movie to date, largely because the director takes himself out of his Palestinian homeland after the first act and moves the action to Paris and New York. By not directly confronting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Suleiman is able to get to grips with an equally pertinent question: what does it mean to be a Palestinian? Is the grass greener on the other side?

The film starts in the familiar surroundings of Nazareth. Dressed in his trademark hat and three-quarter coat, Suleiman drinks wine and looks on as someone is taking the fruit from his neighbour’s lemon tree, claiming that it’s ok because he usually asks and is given permission: “I’m not stealing.” Yet every day he encroaches a little more, chopping down trees and cultivating the land – so much so that it makes one wonder if he is actually the owner. It’s funny in and of itself, but it also brings the settlements to mind in a film full of double meanings. The director is aware that he has been on this territory before, most directly in The Time That Remains [ + see also: trailer film profile ] in 2009, so it’s a smart move that instead of confronting this threat directly, he does what many Palestinians have done, which is leave the country. As a director, he has the privilege of being able to come and go, and not having to go into exile.

When he arrives in Paris, he sits in a café and gets to witness la belle vie . Pretty models walk by, and it feels like a picture-postcard version of the city, made by a fashion house. But that changes as Suleiman spends more time in the French capital. The streets are eerily empty in the morning, and what he does see are black cleaners everywhere, police bureaucracy and a military presence. When he goes to see a French film financier about his movie, he’s told, “It’s not Palestinian enough.”

So off he goes to New York City, where he can’t even make it past the lobby of a film production company to pitch his project, despite the best efforts of Gael García Bernal . Everywhere he looks, he sees Americans carrying guns; it’s a situation that is just as bad as the one he has left behind in Palestine. Suleiman takes aim at Trump and American imperialism just by having guns being unpacked from cars and slung over shoulders.

The absurdities and visual gags contained in It Must Be Heaven are some of the funniest sketches that Suleiman has put on screen, making this his most agreeable and fun movie so far.

It Must Be Heaven was produced by France’s Rectangle Productions and Nazira Films , Germany’s Pallas Film , Canada’s Possibles Media and Turkey’s ZeynoFilm, in association with the Doha Film Institute , Wild Bunch , Le Pacte , Schortcut Films, Maison 4:3, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and KNM . Its international sales are handled by Wild Bunch .

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The Sydney Morning Herald

This was published 4 years ago

It Must Be Heaven leaves us wondering in the best possible way

By paul byrnes, save articles for later.

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IT MUST BE HEAVEN

Rated M, 97 minutes

Palestinian director Elia Suleiman is hardly prolific, having made only three other features and a few documentaries and shorts in 30 years, but his work is worth the wait. It Must Be Heaven is the fourth feature, and it explains to some extent the long gaps in getting things made.

It is an autobiographical comedy in three locations, by turns satirical, slapstick, and rueful. Suleiman plays a version of himself, leaving Nazareth for Paris after the deaths of his parents, moving to the US, then returning ‘‘home’’ – except there is no real home for this Palestinian. Nazareth in northern Israel is never identified as the first location: you have to guess. That’s perhaps one of Suleiman’s over-developed artistic tendencies – he doesn’t want to spoonfeed us, so he sometimes tells us too little. That is also what some people love about his films – the open-endedness, the possibility of many readings, the inscrutability.

It’s not necessary to share that view to enjoy his humour, humanity and intelligence. He has been compared to Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton, in that he is the fool in the middle of most of his scenes, waiting to be poleaxed by life. There are a couple of moments that make clear his debt to those geniuses, hence my word slapstick, but most of his humour is more cerebral. An example is the scene in which tanks roll through the streets of Paris. It’s unexplained, chilling and ‘‘funny’’ only in its incongruity.

Behind the humour, there is a melancholy examination of the idea of permanent exile. Suleiman’s character is no longer comfortable in Nazareth, where Palestinians now predominate, and where he grew up. He finds that Paris and New York, where he goes to escape, are not quite ‘‘home’’ either.

Elia Suleiman is the fool in the middle of most of his scenes, waiting to be poleaxed by life. Credit: Potential Films

His character does not speak for the first half. He walks in eerily deserted streets in Nazareth, in a straw hat that never leaves his head. With his owlish glasses and beard, he looks like an Orthodox priest – and that’s perhaps intentional. Suleiman is from the ‘‘Roum’’ Greek Orthodox community in Israel, and the first scene is an irreverent joke about an Orthodox ceremony that goes wrong.

The only hint that his parents have died is a brief visit to the cemetery, and the empty house to which he returns. Gangs of armed youths roam the empty streets, freaking him out, so he leaves for Paris, where the streets are just as empty – except for all the pretty girls who stroll past in the sun, wearing flimsy dresses and showing their legs. Nina Simone sings ‘‘I put a spell on you’’ in this scene – a song he used in an earlier film.

A few of his actors are familiar too, suggesting continuity with his most recent features – The Time that Remains (2009) and Divine Intervention (2002). As if to explain the long time between, the straw-hatted man meets with a Paris producer, who’s full of praise for his work, but offers absolutely no money. We have a commitment to Palestinian film, he explains, but your film is perhaps not ‘‘Palestinian enough’’.

Suleiman’s observations on Paris and New York are wry, sometimes sharp, more expansively funny. Every person in the New York deli where he shops carries a weapon – even the children. Cops in Paris chase citizens through the streets on monowheels and roller skates. A French ambulance crew serves a homeless man with a full meal – chicken or fish – followed by coffee, before moving on. That idea of ‘‘no place’’ runs through a lot of these jokes, but quietly, with a tinge of chaos.

Suleiman has made more accessible films than this, but he has never been conventional. This is another hybrid – part essay film, part odyssey, not quite a travelogue, more like a psychic jigsaw. You have to put the pieces together yourself, and that is against all popular modes of current filmmaking. The mood is superbly sustained by emptying most of the locations of people (astounding, given some of the places he got closed down for filming, such as the entrance to the Louvre). It’s a soulful sort of comedy, rather than a thigh-slapper, but thoughtful is always better than its alternative.

Film Review: It Must Be Heaven

The latest from Palestinian director Elia Suleiman continues to appreciate the finer details and absurdities of everyday life through sketches at home and abroad, writes Yasmin Turner...

Director : Elia Suleiman Starring : Stephen McHattie, Raia Haidar, Fadi Sakr Running time : 102 minutes

It’s been over a decade since writer-director-star Elia Suleiman’s last stylized semi-biographical drama, The Time That Remains – but while It Must Be Heaven has all his hallmarks, the focus shifts from the struggle in the Occupied Territories to the condition of the global Palestinian. Suleiman is in every scene of It Must Be Heaven , but he only speaks four words, leaving the soul of Palestine expressed through his own face and body. Made up of small episodic frames, Suleiman’s work can be likened to that of an art exhibition, inventing visual language bold like the impasto brushstroke of an impressionist painting, yet minimalistic, rendering words almost completely useless. When his homeland is questioned, he replies, “Nazareth,” then explains: “I am Palestinian.” And that’s all you need to know.

The opening scene in Nazareth depicts an Orthodox priest chanting and leading his faithful procession through the streets at night toward a closed iron door, supposed to open on his command. An unseen helper on the other side (we guess this is Suleiman), refuses the priest's entry, and initiates a hilarious moment where the priest disappears offscreen to have a word or two with the drunken ‘helper’. Reading into the scene, multiple metaphors can be found, including the most prominent idea of the denial of entry to a person’s communal space. A light-hearted metaphor for a land being appropriated can also be taken from another snippet in Nazareth, when, in the mornings, a man casually steals lemons from Suleiman’s yard and occasionally just hacks away at the tree.

Suleiman leaves for Paris following the recent death of a loved one and – accompanied by Nina Simone’s I Put a Spell on You – is spotted sitting outside at a café as a series of stunning young women boasting colourful, designer outfits confidently stride past in a slow-mo montage, fulfilling the stereotypes of the fashion capital. Paris soon transforms and the scene plays until it becomes increasingly repetitive, the women no more than mannequins. The heavy and unnerving presence of policemen is easily lost in the humouring choreographed movements of the cops on Segways and the sequence of army tanks in the city on Bastille Day is a reminder that militarism isn’t only found in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the absurd section that finds him watching a homeless man being offered a two-course meal from an ambulance as if he’s dining at a fine establishment mocks France’s generous healthcare system.

Suleiman does not believe anywhere is heaven, and neither does he think his home is hell

Suleiman moves to his next location of New York, after a meeting with a film producer is unsuccessful in providing him with funding because the film isn’t Palestinian enough. However, in New York he faces even higher expectations of who he should be, beginning with from a taxi driver, ecstatic to be in the same cab as a real Palestinian, to a film industry with little interest in hearing the Palestinian story. Suleiman, once again, evaluates the tiny details of the everyday, from an encounter with a persistent sparrow to a panel discussion at an Arab American forum that seems to be overwhelmed by robotic applause. Meanwhile, in Central Park, armed cops elaborately chase and cover up a girl wearing a Palestinian flag for a top and most alarmingly, Suleiman observes ordinary people: men, women and children walking the supermarkets and streets with assault rifles or bullet proof vests, commenting on the stereotypical view of Americans’ enthusiastic right to bear arms.

At the end, in a club in Palestine, Suleiman watches mixed couples in a packed room dancing and singing joyously; a vibrant vision of the future of Palestine, one of which is moving faster than he can anticipate, but exactly the youthful population analogous to most cities around the world. Instead of the usual images of Palestine, of the Israeli-Palestine border wall, Revolutionary martyrs’ posters or the checkpoints projected to the Western world in media and news, there are two simple images you are left with: a yearning glimpse of a Bedouin girl amongst the peaceful olive trees, followed by a scene of the next generation in a club dancing with content. The use of the song Arabiyon Ana (I’m an Arab) by Yuri Mrakadi, a popular Lebanese singer who experienced the disasters of civil war in his country, only furthers this vision of a strong Palestinian future. The opening line of the song, 'A’arabiyon ana ikhsheeni' (I’m an Arab, fear me), echoes ominously or be it ironically, but the films’ sophisticated and articulate messaging perhaps alternatively communicates: I am an Arab, revere me.

The film does not ignore the Occupation altogether, with clear metaphors throughout and a scene where a blindfolded girl sits in the back of two Israeli soldiers’ car while they exchange sunglasses repetitively in a witty display. But this artistic and cinematic experience is much more than facts and tries to enhance understanding of what it means to be Palestinian in a global context. The subjective view that the world is a microcosm of Palestine comes into question, as police presence intensifies, check points increase and citizens feel the need to be armed, globally. But one thing is certain, Suleiman does not believe anywhere is heaven, and neither does he think his home is hell.

Did you know? When promoting the film, Suleiman argued that some of the greatest comedy is born out of times of turmoil and tragedy. He said: “If you have that sense of humour, I think it’s only fair that you share it. It’s great when I watch with the audience and I see them happy – it gives me so much pleasure.”

It Must Be Heaven is in cinemas now

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It Must Be Heaven: Director Elia Suleiman on His Droll New Comedy

The Palestinian filmmaker discusses the sense of “solitary alienation” that catalysed his latest film, It Must Be Heaven, an existentialist comedy about our increasingly globalised world

“It feels strange to think about talking about things other than this,” says Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, speaking over the phone from his home in Paris. It’s March 20, 2020 and his fourth feature It Must Be Heaven is set to hit cinemas in a couple of weeks – although, as it transpires, the release will be delayed for over a year.

“This”, of course, being the pandemic, the gravity of which is just beginning to sink in. The French capital is four days into its first intense lockdown – a scenario eerily preempted by a segment in Suleiman’s film, which finds its central character wandering around major Parisian landmarks entirely devoid of people. “My wife and I have been receiving ironic texts and photos of the locations empty again,” he says wryly.

Like Suleiman’s other features, the droll, auto-fictional comedy stars the director himself as a near-silent protagonist, who watches as absurd snippets of everyday life unfold around him, his eyebrows rising and falling with amusement, bemusement and sheer disbelief. But while the director’s previous films have centred powerfully on “the surreal texture of life in Palestine under Israeli occupation”, in the words of critic Bilge Ebiri, this time Suleiman takes the action beyond his homeland – to no less political effect.

In this instance, we see his character travel from Nazareth to Paris to New York – all cities that Suleiman himself has lived in – encountering as many similarities as he does differences between his new surroundings and his native country. The result is a razor-sharp critique of our increasingly globalised, and ghettoised, world that is, by turns, hilarious and horrifying. “It’s funny because of the despair,” the filmmaker notes, “because things have never been more desperate.”

The idea for It Must Be Heaven first occurred to Suleiman a decade ago, he explains. “I’m not a typical camera-fetishist filmmaker. I don’t jump from one film to another or constantly invent plots and narratives; I simply wait until there’s a necessity for something to be said.” This story, he says, was triggered by a rising feeling of solitary alienation: “an inner-anxiety of things, of ambiences, of animations of everyday life [that I observed] which seemed to hint at the general global situation in a marginal sense.” Eventually these observations accrued – jotted down by Suleiman in notebooks over the years – until the director felt compelled to transcribe them to film.

“I felt that, possibly, sharing could lead to a sense of consolation,” he muses with the same poetic meditativeness that imbues his films. “I dare not say, ‘ignite hope’, because that was not exactly the mood I was in – there was a period of time where I was beginning to suspect that even hope was an illusion – but one has a sense that films can reduce or relieve some of the inner-violence out of our daily life.”

And there’s no doubt that watching Suleiman’s take on the world is cathartic. It Must Be Heaven ’s opening scene sees a Greek orthodox priest knock on a church door with theatrical solemnity in a symbolic bid for his congregation to be let in, only to be met by a stony silence. Right from the start, the message is clear: we’re wreaking our own chaos upon the world, and no greater power is coming to save us.

Suleiman’s films are collages of sorts, made up of incidental scenes such as this. Each vignette resonates symphonically with its counterparts, the lack of dialogue encouraging the viewer to participate in establishing the film’s connecting threads. “I don’t work like a narrative filmmaker,” he explains. “I work more like a painter on tableaux. There’s a certain faith that whatever is being pigmented is some kind of subliminal montage; that the tableaux will actually form some kind of a narrative.”

In It Must Be Heaven , as in his other films, much of the film’s weight lies in the clever, often uncanny choreographing of the scenes: police officers deliver strange dances on segues, or performatively enact meaningless tasks, highlighting their futile pomp; selfish visitors to Paris’ Jardin du Luxembourg go to extraordinary lengths to secure the wrought iron chairs overlooking the central pond, their movements exaggerated à la Buster Keaton.

“I sit in a cafe, watching people pass by, and I get a little hint from the street animation of a potential dance. Then I imagine how it could become this dance; that’s how all the choreography in my films come about,” Suleiman says of this quintessential element of his filmmaking. “I think it’s a culmination of the total experiences that you have in life, of a certain way of looking.”

At the mention of ways of seeing, our conversation turns to the late art critic John Berger, Sulieman’s close friend and mentor to whom the film is co-dedicated. “He gave me a great sense of how to be critically hopeful,” the director says. “I have a heavier dose of melancholy than he did.” One of the last times they talked about hope, he adds, Berger said something that has become somewhat of a “poetic mantra” for Sulieman. “I asked, ‘How can you look at the world with the regard of hope?’ And he said, ‘We are all looking at the world with a sense of hope, except we are looking at it with a scarred eye.’”

This moving sentiment ripples throughout It Must Be Heaven , which, although presenting an undeniably anguished, often disparaging view of the world – “there will be Palestine,” a fortune teller tells Suleiman’s character with great self-assurance in a typically tragi-comic, and particularly pertinent, scene, “just not in your lifetime, or mine” – also offers up discreet glimmers of optimism. The film, which finally arrives on screens this Friday, closes with a scene as potent in its symbolism as the one that opens it: a nightclub filled with young Palestinians, dancing with carefree abandon as the world-weary Suleiman looks on with a small smile.

It Must Be Heaven is in cinemas and online from 18 June 2020.

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It must be heaven.

Directed by Elia Suleiman

Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.

Elia Suleiman Ali Suliman Gael García Bernal Stephen McHattie Kwasi Songui Grégoire Colin Holden Wong Alain Dahan Vincent Maraval Sébastien Beaulac Ossama Bawardi François Girard Robert Higden Nael Kanj Raïa Haïdar Aldo Lopez Kengo Saïto Bich Ly-Cuong Gabrielle Mankiewicz Yumi Narita Stephen Mwinga Basil McKenna Daniel Naaser Mathieu Samaille Kamil Silbak India de Almeida Nancy Grant Tarik Kopty

Director Director

Elia Suleiman

Producers Producers

Michel Merkt Thanassis Karathanos Serge Noël Martin Hampel Zeynep Ozbatur Atakan Laurine Pelassy Édouard Weil Éric Chabot Michel Croteau Serge Catoire Elia Suleiman

Writer Writer

Casting casting.

Juna Suleiman Richard Rousseau

Editor Editor

Véronique Lange

Cinematography Cinematography

Sofian El Fani

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Jeanne Tassy Barbara Canale Reem Jubran Jeremy Peter Allen

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Visual effects visual effects.

Emilien Lazaron

Sound Sound

Johannes Doberenz Gwennolé Le Borgne Olivier Touche

Costume Design Costume Design

Alexia Crisp-Jones Eric Poirier

Rectangle Productions Nazira Films Pallas Film Zeyno Film Abbout Productions Wild Bunch Possibles Média Turkish Radio & Television TRT

Germany State of Palestine France Canada Qatar Turkey

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

Spanish English Hebrew (modern) Arabic French

Releases by Date

24 may 2019, 09 oct 2019.

Theatrical limited

07 Jul 2020

18 jun 2021, 04 dec 2019, 05 dec 2019, 10 jan 2020, 16 jan 2020, 06 mar 2020, 11 jun 2020, 02 jul 2020, 08 oct 2020, 17 jan 2020, 20 feb 2020, 07 nov 2020, releases by country.

Premiere Cannes Film Festival
Theatrical U
Theatrical 0
Theatrical Κ
Theatrical M/12
Theatrical 15

South Korea

Premiere Busan International Film Festival
Theatrical 普遍級
Premiere London Film Festival
Theatrical limited 15

97 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Mike Kennedy ★★★★½ 4

There was a point about a third of the way through writer/director Elia Suleiman's absurdist comedy that I realised that hidden just under the surface of the very funny screenplay was a diamond-hard political edge.

Suleiman, playing himself, opens his film in Palestine then travels to Paris and New York trying to get producers to put up the money for his latest film. He runs into Western stereotypes of what a Palestinian is and what a Palestinian film must be. At one stage in the New York sequences, Gael Garcia Bernal (playing himself) and trying to help get him a pitch, says to someone on the phone that Suleiman is “not a Palestinian from Israel — he is a Palestinian…

Review by 3la2 ★★★★½ 16

Bong Jon Hoo: We all live under one big country ,called cApITaliSm (He actually said that)

Letterboxd ,Cannes and the Oscars: OH MY GOD I'M GONNA CUM! PARASITE IS THE BEST FILM OF ALL TIME!!!!

Elia Suliman: All countries are turning into Palastine (This brings up interesting observations and comparisons between different countries)

The rest of the world: Soooo... You are Jehadi Roy Andersonn?

Review by Will Sloan

I know virtually nothing about Palestinian cinema, and would like to know more. As is often the case with films by oppressed groups, lists of "The 20 Best Palestinian Movies" tend to be dominated by movies that are directly about the oppression. That's not quite the case with this movie by Elia Suleiman, probably the most internationally lauded working Palestinian filmmaker, which is a whimsical, Tati-esque comedy with a political undercurrent. Suleiman plays himself as a mostly-silent Hulton-esque figure, beginning in Nazareth before travelling to Paris and New York looking for funding for a film. Both cities are heightened versions of themselves, and while the official synopsis - "Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to…

Review by Hicham Lamalem ★★★★½ 3

في الحقيقة لم يكن إليا سليمان مضطرا لينطق في ذلك المشهد رفقة سائق التاكسي الأمريكي.. لكنه أبى إلا أن يكسر صمته الذي امتد طيلة مجريات الفيلم وقال عبارة واحدة فقط تمثل له الشيء الكثير: أنا فلسطيني.. حتى في نهاية الفيلم أهدى عمله هذا لوطنه الأم.

من بدايته إلى نهايته يحمل هذا الفيلم طابعا غريبا سرياليا وساخرا.. كأنه تجميعية من المشاهد الكاريكاتورية.. ربما هي ظواهر غريبة تتراءى لسليمان وحده وتسرق اهتمامه فأراد مشاركتنا إياها على شكل مشاهد أشبه ما تكون بالأحلام التي لا تحمل معنى محدداً.

هذا الفيلم رائع جداً.. يستحق المشاهدة بل ويستحق أكثر من مشاهدة.. إطارات مذهلة يتوسطها سليمان نفسه في كل مرة وتصوير مميز جداً يسقي البصر.. ولكي لا يحسد السمع البصر فقد أشبع مسامعنا أيضا بمقاطع موسيقية…

Review by Chris 🍉 ★★★★★ 2

Undeniably magical. Palestine must be liberated 🇵🇸

Review by Eduardo Valente 1

If Suleiman's whole career has been about managing to find grace and true comedy in the harsh reality of being a Palestinian filmmaker (as Gael Garcia Bernal says in his cameo here - "he is a filmmaker from Palestine that makes comedies, seriously"), "It Must Be Heaven" is a perfect summary of the weight he must carry after almost 30 years doing that and seeing that the world around him is not exactly getting any better ("there will be Palestine... not in your lifetime however", says the card reader).

And it´s of course necessary to say "the world" since one of the main themes here is taking the weight of being a Palestine filmmaker and putting it out in the…

Review by Jos 2.0 🍉

A Palestinian filmmaker who resists being pigeonholed by Western critics as a stereotypical Palestinian storyteller. A slice-of-life, Tati-esque comedy, It Must Be Heaven sees director Elia Suleiman travelling from his home in Palestine to Paris to New York seeking funding for his next film, though this is merely the loose scaffolding around a series of two-minute vignettes where he observes the world he inhabits (seriously, the dvd chapters skip exactly two minutes ahead with each click). When Suleiman meets with a French film distributor who is rejecting his film proposal, director is pointing a finger at how Western people place Palestinians and Palestinian art in a box, who gesture at being allies but diminish an entire culture to a caricature…

Review by comrade_yui ★★★★ 6

a delightful multicultural comedy which nevertheless reveals painful truths about the israeli-palestinian conflict and the world's involvement in it -- elia suleiman shows us in this film how the countries which support israel's apartheid (and genocidal) regime have grown to resemble israel itself, the united states treats its own minority groups with a variant of the same venomous hatred and persecution that palestinians have to deal with every single day -- cops carry assault rifles and drive armored carriers, surveillance keeps the populace paranoid and scared, and walls and barriers are emerging everywhere in daily life. what's happening right now in gaza is inexcusable, and the western powers who unilaterally arm and endorse the israeli occupying forces have blood on…

Review by ✨Angelica Jade Bastién🔮 ★★★★

A strange little delight. Elia Suleiman creates a tragi-comic story defined by quietude. Almost feels like vignettes spun loosely together. Once we get the scene with the dope, joyful, pro-Palestine black cabbie in New York City — all the more potent because its director/writer/star speaks for the only time in the film — I was all in. Also, love a lil Gael Garcia Bernal cameo.

Review by Ali ★★★½ 1

‫العالم كله فلسطين بنظر إيليا سليمان‬ ‫فلا فرق بين ما يجري في الناصرة و باريس‬ ‫و نيويورك تظل العنصرية و الطبقية و عدم الشعور بالأمان سمه يتشاركها الكثير حول العالم ، كل شيء يبدأ في الوطن و ينتهي في الوطن فلا أمان ولا مستقر الا في الوطن .‬

Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★ 1

[originally written as part of my TIFF '19 coverage]

More of the same, except that (a) it’s been 10 long years since our last check-in*, and (b) Suleiman ventures far from Nazareth for the first time*, toting his bemused impassivity (or impassive bemusement) to Paris and New York. Culture-clash gags are occasionally too facile—one sequence has every American in sight packing heat, from pistols to rifles to rocket launchers—but that tendency is counterbalanced by some of his most exquisitely choreographed absurdity: French cops dancing on Segways; emergency personnel who treat the homeless like first-class air travelers; parkgoers battling for the rare empty chair beside a fountain. (Most of the best jokes are Paris-set, now that I think about it.…

Review by Marwan Bobssi ★★★★½

This is the right movie for anyone who is tired of "modern" comedies. Aside from its stunning Cinematography and extremely clever use of Music (the film has nearly no dialogue), its humour is highly intelligent, not always obvious, and i must say that i was delighted to see it on the big screen.

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Review - It must be heaven

It Must Be Heaven is a comic, almost surreal fable, set in three cities – Nazareth, Paris and New York – by Palestinian director Elia Suleiman, who also plays the lead,

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Simon Morris: When I watched the hour and half of deadpan surrealism that is It Must Be Heaven I kept waiting for something to happen.

But it's not really that sort of film. Like Suleiman - playing, we assume, a version of himself - the best we can do is watch what takes place in front of us.

The opening act takes place in Nazareth, Suleiman's home town and these days a prosperous-looking Middle East city.

Suleiman spends his mornings sipping coffee, looking at people going past - wait, what did that man place under that car? Was it a bomb? - and chatting to his neighbours.

I'm not a thief, says the man picking lemons off someone else's tree. But later it turns out he is a thief, but it's all someone else's fault.

The security of Nazareth is in the hands of a trio of policemen, who roller-skate in formation past Suleiman's house. No-one investigates the bomb, incidentally.

The activities in Nazareth continue in a series of unconnected, unexplained and possibly symbolic scenes.

The only thing linking them is the presence of Suleiman - middle-aged, bemused and silent. He goes for a drive out into the countryside - a trip that magically leaves the earth and lifts into the sky…

Our man is in a plane, that eventually alights in France. Perhaps now he's gone somewhere else, events may become clearer.

Suleiman catches the Metro, where he's glowered at by a mysterious Parisian gangster for a few stops.

But nothing eventuates, and Suleiman arrives at his destination - a French film company, who might be interested in backing his latest film.

They tell him that Palestine is very cool right now. But they're a little concerned that this isn't what they're expecting. It's not angry enough - it's not Palestinian enough.

There's not much Suleiman can do about this, so he silently goes out into the street. There, suddenly, tanks go past, also planes. A display of military might - is that what this film is about?

But before we can start inflicting any interpretation on the proceedings we're interrupted by two Japanese tourists.

Since Suleiman is clearly not Brigitte he shrugs and moves on. Is he going to say anything in this movie?

Yes he is. He gets into a taxi, and the American driver turns and chats to him. Once again, Suleiman has travelled when we weren't looking and now he's in New York being asked a direct question. Obviously, it's rude not to answer.

Now I imagine I'm starting to infuriate people who are simply waiting to find out what exactly It must be heaven is trying to say, and whether it's saying it effectively.

The only answer I can give you is "it depends".

If you're in the mood for a series of slightly absurd scenes - very nicely shot, I should add - that circle the subjects of national identity, the duties of the police, political correctness and the role of cinema in asking questions, this may very well be your film.

Le Monde calls it "pure poetry" if that's any help, while Liberation is slightly more muted, calling it "genial".

And while I spent rather more time than I like scratching my head through this film - that's the sound of a lot of men, women and children walking around New York armed to the teeth, by the way - the images stayed with me longer than I expected.

Maybe Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal - who shows up unexpectedly at a New York production office - offers the best description of It must be heaven.

A comedy about peace? Why not? Though maybe change the title.

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Movie review: It Must Be Heaven

It'll only take five minutes before It Must Be Heaven will begin to irk you or provide you with a humorous antidote to your lockdown woes.

This gentle, quirky, and very plot-thin film follows Palestinian director and writer Elia Suleiman's (who plays himself) as he travels from Palestine to Paris and then to New York.

He sits on porches, park benches, cafes, in office foyers, and quietly observes for long periods the people around him, noting through his bemused expression their peculiarities.

It Must Be Heaven is an oddity—an intensely observational film where for long silent intervals Suleiman stares down the barrel of the camera breaking the fourth wall, shepherding his audience to watch and react with him.

His deadpan expressions and silent brand of physical humour evoke a sort of genteel Mr.Bean-on-valium quality and the episodic skits, many of which appear cynically allegorical in nature, oddly flirt with magical realism with mixed results.

Synchronised Parisian police on electric unicycles, an angel on the run, and a bothersome sparrow, among other eccentricities all make up Suleiman's peculiar brand of humour and whether this mould of absurd comedy works for you is subjective.

Unfortunately for me, it outstayed its welcome and Suleiman's constantly bewildered and confused expression became monotonous.

Despite this, there is something visually alluring about the film that allows you to forgive its humorous shortcomings.

From the ebbing and flowing of Parisian streets to the heaving gun-toting metropolis of New York and to the quiet citrus-lined streets of Palestine — its visual scope is impressive and special credit must be given to cinematographer Sofian El Fani (who also shot the stunningly good Blue is the Warmest Colour), whose frame finds a visual commonality within the three locations, and with it some of the film's core themes that Suleiman's mistimed humour seemed to be searching for.

While the film's absurdist charms did not work on me, I'll guarantee It Must Be Heaven will be the uplifting antidote to this year's drudgery for many. And if nothing else it's certainly beautiful to watch.

Cast: Elia Suleiman, Gael García Bernal, Tarik Kopti Director: Elia Suleiman Running time: 101 mins Rating: PG (Offensive language) Verdict: A comedic misfire, yet curiously beautiful to watch.

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This Korean Action-Thriller Mini-Series Is a Must-Watch

A fun, fast watch.

Author image: Screenshot 2024 03 04 at 4.32.14 PM

One of the many reasons I look forward to the weekend is because I get to catch up on newly-released shows and movies . This weekend’s latest watch was The Tyrant , a new Korean-drama series on Hulu/ Disney+ , which is super intense and jam-packed with action.

Directed and written by Park Hoon-jung , the four-part mini-series tells the heart-pumping story of the race to find a coveted bioweapon that is stolen during a secret handover between Korean and U.S. intelligence agencies. Along the way, there is tons of action, lots of blood, a little betrayal and some suspect characters that have to be dealt with.

The trouble at hand? The South Korean government has developed an extensive plan known as The Tyrant Project, which consists of a bioweapon with the power to enhance human abilities. At first glance, the bioweapon seems like it could be a good idea (superhuman abilities don't exactly sound terrible), but as with all inventions of this nature, the weapon was developed for nefarious reasons, which means it has to be destroyed.

Needless to say, I was thoroughly entertained by The Tyrant .

That bioweapon I just mentioned? Well, South Korea was supposed to turn that over to the United States so that all samples could be destroyed. During that exchange, an assailant known as Director Choi (Kim Seon Ho) takes over and ruins that plan by stealing the sample. Now, I’m not somebody who is typically into shows and movies with loads of blood and killing (and this show has a lot of it), but I couldn’t keep my eyes away (even if I had to cover them at times).

The performances of Kim Seon Ho, Cha Seung-won, Kim Kang-woo and Jo Yoon-and Jo Yoon-so are also noteworthy as their characters are riveting, while also matching the dark neo-noir tone of the series. The visuals are stunning, and so is the camera work—particularly during the action scenes, with the first episode laying the groundwork for the remaining three episodes.

the-tyrant-on-hulu-screencap-girl-with-gun

Episode two is the fallout from the events of the first episode, with a call-to-action to eliminate the two main perpetrators of the operation.

While things end after four episodes here with The Tyrant , I’d say there’s definitely an opportunity to expand upon the final events in the form of another season. If not, you get your answer as to which party is the “winner” of The Tyrant Project so to speak, leaving you more-than-satisfied with a short-but-sweet watch.

You can stream The Tyrant on Hulu and Disney+.

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This Intense New Drama-Thriller Is Based on a Heartbreaking True Story—and It Stars 2 Mega-Famous Singers

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‘Peacock’ Review: A Zingy Austrian Comedy Follows a Friend-For-Hire In Desperate Need of a Real Connection

'All Quiet on the Western Front' standout Albrecht Schuch gives an irresistible star turn in Bernhard Wenger's tart, funny, slightly heartbreaking debut feature.

By Guy Lodge

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With its seemingly absurd premise actually inspired by a real-life boom in rent-a-friend agencies in Japan, this reflection on Insta-lifestyle micro-management and faltering human connection in an age of social-network overload is sufficiently smart and distinctive to weather unavoidable comparisons to the work of Yorgos Lanthimos and particularly Ruben Östlund. “Peacock” is a degree or two warmer than either, with Matthias’ forlorn search for the personality he shed somewhere along the way making him a decidedly endearing antihero. There’s still a whisper of formalist Austrian chill in its quizzical, hands-off perspective and immaculately composed mise-en-scène: Albin Wildner’s lensing is crisp and bright and still, a restrained canvas for stark sight gags.

Business is clearly good, if the pristine, fashionably furnished modernist home he shares with Sophia (Julia Franz Richter) is anything to go by. Yet between his many, varied work appointments and the homework he does for each of them (brushing up on aviation to pose as a child’s pilot father for a school careers day, preparing a speech for his pretend father’s lavish 60th birthday celebrations), there’s less and less time in the day for Matthias to be Matthias.

When Sophia dumps him, he finds he has no remaining connection to himself, while everything he tries to rediscover his center — from expensive yoga retreats to a casual flirtation with a passing acquaintance (Theresa Frostad Eggesbø) that he disastrously misreads — just makes him feel more out of step with modern social rhythms. Even his house feels like a show home that isn’t really his, with its incomprehensible plumbing issues, alienatingly perfect decor (all credit to Katharina Haring’s witty production design) and scuttling, toy-like Pomeranian puppy that he, too, hires from an agency. (“Thanks for calling Rent-a-Dog — good boys only.”) It’ll take a drastic break in his routine to find himself, and a selfishness that can’t be great for business.

Wenger’s script is a sly, finely balanced thing, pointedly and often hilariously poking fun at corporate and capitalistic ideals of self-improvement and social coordination, without ridiculing the individuals who feel beholden to those standards. That is felt in its perceptive quick-sketch character studies of Matthias’s clients, who don’t always want company as much as they want others to think they have it, or in its wry but compassionate treatment of Matthias himself — a sort of human cypher, perhaps, but one who has all the makings of a stand-up guy if he would just, well, stand up.

In a tremendous comic performance of great physical ingenuity and pent-up emotional desperation, Schuch initially essays the blank, pleasant compliance of all the character’s professional personae with an ease that feels duly put-on. It’s as the anxious tells ramp up, his rehearsed expressions and body language twitchily disrupted like TV static, that he becomes less poised, less perfect, much easier to love. “Good service is its own reward,” a client tells Matthias early on, refusing to tip him for his very convincing semblance of devotion. It’s a stingy dodge, perhaps, but an instructive one: “Peacock” serves as a cruel reminder, then a strangely sweet one, that true social contracts are always thankless.

Reviewed at Soho Screening Rooms, London, Aug. 6, 2024. In Venice Film Festival — Critics' Week. Running time: 102 MIN.

Production: (Austria-Germany) An NGF Geyrhalterfilm, CALA Filmproduktion production. (World sales: MK2 Films, Paris.) Producers: Michael Kitzberger, Wolfgang Widerhofer, Markus Glaser, Nikolaus Geyrhalter. Executive producer: Michael Kitzberger, Bogdan Büchner. Co-producer: Martina Haubrich.
Crew: Director, screenplay: Bernhard Wenger. Camera: Albin Wildner. Editor: Rupert Höller. Music: Lorenz Dangel.
With: Albrecht Schuch, Julia Franz Richter, Anton Noori, Theresa Frostad Eggesbø, Salka Weber, Maria Hofstätter, Branko Samarovski, Tilo Nest, Christopher Schärf, Marlene Hauser. (German, English dialogue)

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COMMENTS

It Must Be Heaven
Jul 3, 2021 Full Review Cian Geoghegan Film Ireland Magazine It Must Be Heaven is a brave example of the kind of political dissent that occurs outside of revolutions and riots - the quiet, timid ...
'It Must Be Heaven' Review: Portrait of a Palestinian Abroad
Film Review: 'It Must Be Heaven'. Palestinian director Elia Suleiman continues to relish the minutiae and absurdities of daily life via vignettes of life at home and abroad. Continuing to ...
'It Must Be Heaven' Review
Movies; Movie Reviews 'It Must Be Heaven': Film Review | Cannes 2019. From Nazareth to Paris and on to North America, Palestinian filmmaker-actor Elia Suleiman searches for the future of his ...
'It Must Be Heaven' Review: Elia Suleiman's Palestinian Satire
74 Images. Elia Suleiman is in every scene of "It Must Be Heaven," but he only speaks four words. The writer-director-star finds himself in a New York taxi cab in the midst of a globe-trotting ...
It Must Be Heaven
It Must Be Heaven is a finely crafted, unique movie that revels in its absurdity. Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 29, 2021 Graeme Tuckett Stuff.co.nz
IT MUST BE HEAVEN: Maybe Not Heavenly, But An Absurd Delight
It Must Be Heaven is a comedic collection of vignettes brought a satirical edge - and maybe even slightly cynical undertone - by filmmaker Elia Suleiman. Blending the Palestinian filmmaker's own worldview with absurd skits (evocative of Roy Andersson) and modern geopolitics, Suleiman 's film may not be as insightful as it thinks but it ...
It Must Be Heaven (2019)
It Must Be Heaven: Directed by Elia Suleiman. With Elia Suleiman, Tarik Kopty, Kareem Ghneim, George Khleifi. Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.
It Must Be Heaven
The Film Stage. May 29, 2019. By the time Suleiman's character finishes his world trip and returns home, all he leaves us with is the reassurance that the Palestinian people are resilient and, eventually, will be free as well. That's a terribly lazy note to end on. Some might even call it trivializing.
'It Must Be Heaven' Review: This Hopeful, Inclusive Film Uses Comedy To
It Must Be Heaven shows how comedy, even with so light a touch, can be the most effective way at examining the human condition. With a wider, more transnational scope, Suleiman's vision is both ...
It Must Be Heaven , directed by Elia Suleiman
Review. It Must Be Heaven. 3 out of 5 stars. Sharp and surreal humour just about stops this light-hearted comedy from floating away. ... Popular movies [image] [category] [title]
'It Must Be Heaven' Film Review: Palestinian Comedy Finds Absurdity
Quite to the contrary, in fact, because he uses that flattening style to make his larger point. "It Must Be Heaven" finds the filmmaker/character leaving his home in Palestine to live in Paris ...
It Must Be Heaven Review: A lyrical and absurdist trip around ...
28th June 2020. Elia Suleiman is a guy who makes films that juggle the preposterous (and frequently hilarious) with heartbreak. His latest film, 'It Must Be Heaven', presents a Chaplin-esque meditation on what it means to be "a citizen of the world", albeit filtered through a Palestinian lens, with farcical scenes of Suleiman as a wide-eyed ...
It Must Be Heaven: a Palestinian in Paris
The Time That Remains (2009), combining modern Palestinian history with an autobiographical thread, is his most ambitious achievement in this vein. But It Must Be Heaven, which takes a gentler, even whimsical approach, feels somewhat flat, as if both Suleiman's quietly mordant humour and his persona are played out.
It Must Be Heaven
It Must Be Heaven is a 2019 internationally co-produced comedy-drama film directed, written and starred by Elia Suleiman. [1] It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. [2] [3]It was selected as the Palestinian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. [4]
It Must Be Heaven
Palestinian comedy It Must Be Heaven follows its director (Elia Suleiman) from Nazareth to Paris to New York, silently observing the world around him in all its absurdist folly. Suleiman cuts a ...
Review: It Must Be Heaven
The absurdities and visual gags contained in It Must Be Heaven are some of the funniest sketches that Suleiman has put on screen, making this his most agreeable and fun movie so far. It Must Be Heaven was produced by France's Rectangle Productions and Nazira Films, Germany's Pallas Film, Canada's Possibles Media and Turkey's ZeynoFilm ...
It Must Be Heaven leaves us wondering in the best possible way
IT MUST BE HEAVEN. Rated M, 97 minutes ★★★½ Palestinian director Elia Suleiman is hardly prolific, having made only three other features and a few documentaries and shorts in 30 years, but ...
Film Review: It Must Be Heaven
Director: Elia Suleiman Starring: Stephen McHattie, Raia Haidar, Fadi Sakr Running time: 102 minutes . It's been over a decade since writer-director-star Elia Suleiman's last stylized semi-biographical drama, The Time That Remains - but while It Must Be Heaven has all his hallmarks, the focus shifts from the struggle in the Occupied Territories to the condition of the global Palestinian.
It Must Be Heaven: Director Elia Suleiman on His Droll
It Must Be Heaven is in cinemas and online from 18 June 2020. Design & Living Film in Focus Film. The Palestinian filmmaker discusses the sense of "solitary alienation" that catalysed his latest film, It Must Be Heaven, an existentialist comedy about our increasingly globalised world.
It Must Be Heaven (2019)
It Must Be Heaven. (2019) U 12/04/2019 (FR) Comedy , Drama 1h 37m. User. Score. What's your Vibe ? Play Trailer.
‎It Must Be Heaven (2019) directed by Elia Suleiman • Reviews, film
A slice-of-life, Tati-esque comedy, It Must Be Heaven sees director Elia Suleiman travelling from his home in Palestine to Paris to New York seeking funding for his next film, though this is merely the loose scaffolding around a series of two-minute vignettes where he observes the world he inhabits (seriously, the dvd chapters skip exactly two ...
Review
It must be heaven is a comic, almost surreal fable, set in three cities - Nazareth, Paris and New York - by Palestinian director Elia Suleiman.
Movie review: It Must Be Heaven
Movie review: It Must Be Heaven. By Toby Woollaston. 30 Sep, 2020 04:00 PM 2 mins to read. Save Share. Share this article. Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.
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It Must Be Heaven Reviews

IT MUST BE HEAVEN: Maybe Not Heavenly, But An Absurd Delight

Absurdly humorous

A sense of belonging without ownership

Slightly too c*cksure

Not quite heaven, but flying high

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'It Must Be Heaven' Review: This Hopeful, Inclusive Film Uses Comedy To Explore The Human Condition [Cannes]

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‘It Must Be Heaven’ Film Review: Palestinian Comedy Finds Absurdity Around the World

It Must Be Heaven shows a Palestinian in Paris searching for salvation

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It Must Be Heaven: Director Elia Suleiman on His Droll New Comedy

The Palestinian filmmaker discusses the sense of “solitary alienation” that catalysed his latest film, It Must Be Heaven, an existentialist comedy about our increasingly globalised world

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