Review: Looking for a Way Out; Sometimes even in total silence, the remarkably talented cast conveys the hopelessness of everyday life in the West Bank.(Paradise Now)(Movie Review)

Byline: Tara Pepper

Standing at a bus stop on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, a raft of explosives concealed under his starched shirt and dark suit, Said (Kais Neshif), an intense young Arab from Nablus, has almost reached the climax of the suicide mission he's been primed for. Gazing at the small crowd of poor Israelis waiting in the dusty heat, Said recognizes in their worn clothes and defeated stance the poverty and desolation with which he, too, has lived all his life. They exchange wary glances and weary nods; they may be from different sides of the border but they are all on the same road, going nowhere. The bus roars into view, and the crowd shuffles aboard.

Throughout Hany Abu-Assad's jarring new film, "Paradise Now," expressions and gestures say much more than words. The fearsomely talented lead trio--Neshif, Ali Suliman and Lubna Azabal--deftly use silence to convey complexities that can't be articulated. Hopelessness hangs thick in the air as Said and his buddy Khaled (Suliman) share a hookah pipe on a rocky, barren hillside overlooking the city after a day's work patching up rusty cars. "Why talk?" Said asks his charming, outspoken friend Suha (Azabal), who grew up in France and has returned to Palestine as a human-rights worker to preach peaceful opposition. "To make other people feel better?"

Painful, intimate scenes like these are more telling of the ...