Life for Palestinians under Israeli occupation may not seem the subject of a comedy, but Divine Intervention, semiautobiographically directed by Elia Suleiman, tries to make light of unhappy conditions. The humor is more European than American, however, and has little dialog, similar to Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953). For example, a man in a Santa Claus suit is pursued and killed by four youth. The driver of a car waves in a friendly manner at those whom he sees while cursing them to himself. A man throws bagged garbage onto someone else’s property, then objects strongly when the neighbor throws the bags back. A man destroys a road so that his neighbor’s car cannot gain access. A balloon with a picture of Yasser Arafat is launched to distract Israeli guards at a checkpoint. Seriously injured hospital patients puff cigarettes while walking along a corridor and carrying their IV stands. An Israeli police officer, unable to direct a tourist to various sights, asks a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner in his police van to give directions; he, in turn, points in three different directions and later escapes from the van. A man stockpiles beer bottles so that he can throw them when police come to arrest him, but police use the back entrance to apprehend him. The only plot of any substance focuses on a pair of lovers, Elia Suleiman and Manal Khader, who try to carry on an affair while living in Jerusalem and Ramallah, which are on opposite sides of the al-Ram checkpoint. On one occasion, she struts past the checkpoint as if modeling sexy clothes, whereupon the guards stop telling her to stop and instead put down their machine guns. The best action occurs when Khader uses ninja kungfu on five Israeli commandos, but that is fantasy in contrast with the unsurprising reality that Palestinians are not enjoying life under present circumstances. MH