In the engrossing documentary Mayor, the camera shadows a mayor as he goes about his daily duties – and he’s the mayor of the Palestinian city Ramallah. Director David Osit, in just his third feature, has created a masterpiece of cinéma vérité that informs us about human foibles and aspirations, nestled within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Boy, I enjoyed this movie. For the last forty years, my day jobs have been in politics and government, especially local government. Just like every local American elected official, Ramallah Mayor Musa Hadid goes gladhanding among his constituents and hears face-to-face gripes about the equivalent of potholes.
So much of Mayor Hadid’s daily adventures are universal, especially dealing with his own bureaucrats. He endures a tableful of public servants dithering about whether to name the new fountain at city hall. He cajoles a hapless staffer to just get him a radio so he can listen to the news. He reams out a manager who ignores a sewage overflow. And, of course, between ribbon cuttings, he is beset by shady contractors.
Ramallah, however, brings its own unique challenges. Not many mayors have to utter a sentence like “the soldiers are up there shooting at the kids.” At one point, the mayor is tear gassed in his own city hall, as the Israeli army rolls right up to the front windows.
The city has no sewage treatment plant (but there’s a Popeyes). Palestinian rage simmers just under the surface, as some well-meaning German diplomats find out. Mayor Hadid respectfully counters a politically correct politico who wants to spurn a visit by Prince William because Britain issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917.
Musa Hadid is a level-headed pragmatist whose calm demeanor can work to belie his strong fundamental principles. He stiffens to state that you don’t negotiate unless there’s dignity. Most of the time, however, he is refusing to overreact.
“The situation? It’s happening whether we freak out or not.”
Mayor is being described as a dark comedy, which day-to-day local politics anywhere may well be. At one point, Mayor Hadid faces a LITERAL dumpster fire, which is, of course, also metaphorical.
Hadid and his high school- and college-age kids share am appreciation of irony and a robust sense of humor. After each day filled with indignity, frustration and provocation, they relax with mutual teasing, Even at city hall, there’s some amusing banter about Ivanka Trump.
Mayor is one of the Best Movies of 2020. I watched Mayor on Virtual Cinema at Laemmle.