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At ease in Zion? Imaginary places in James' Journey to Jerusalem.

Article Excerpt
In an early scene in the feature film James' Journey to Jerusalem, illegal migrant workers in an Israeli prison draw a map on the wall of their cell. Various places are identifiable on the map: Belgrade, Bucharest, Manila, Sofia. The Philippines are right next to Romania. While the geographical placement of countries is imaginary, the places are the real homelands of these workers, who have come to Israel hoping to find the promised land of milk and honey.

This 2003 film by Israeli director Ra'anan Alexandrowicz tells the story of James, an African sent by his village on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As soon as he steps off the plane at Ben Gurion airport he is arrested as an illegal immigrant. Shimi, an Israeli entrepreneur who hires illegal migrants to work for his cleaning business, buys James out of prison. Shimi keeps their passports and threatens to send the migrants back to their home countries if they cause trouble. After working for Shimi and eventually starting his own cleaning business on the side, James learns not to be a "frayer," of a pushover. James ultimately reaches Jerusalem, although not in the way the viewer might have originally envisioned.

The film has been marketed as a universal morality tale about the conflict between idealism and materialism. It does not purport to be a depiction of the real Israel of the twenty-first century. Emphasis on the fable-like elements of the story, however, occlude the historical realities of the contemporary situation. Films provide "important insights into the psychological, socio-political, and ideological make-up of a specific society at a given point in history," as scholar Douglas Kellner has pointed out (86). Kellner advocates reading films politically; that is, historically contextualizing films and analyzing their images and narratives to understand the ways in which the films speak to politics and ideology (55).

Imaginary places abound in the film, from the imaginary globe drawn by the prisoners to the imaginary Africa of James's village. Following Kellner, the historical background of the imaginary Africa and imaginary Israel of James' Journey to Jerusalem must be investigated in order to learn about contemporary, real Israel.

Africa

The film opens with a song, "Jerusalem," while the opening credits play over a series of paintings of a black man setting off on a journey. The paintings are iconic in style, depicting stylized black figures painted in golden tones. They are not painted in a realistic, representative way. The song is written by Ra'anan Alexandrowicz and the music, according to the film's official website, is categorized as "Ghanaian Folk" music ("Theme Song"). The language in which the song is sung is not specified (over seventy languages are spoken in Ghana), but it is not Hebrew or Yiddish. The translated lyrics as they appear in the subtitles work together with the paintings to reinforce the idea of Africa and Israel as imaginary places. The lyrics read:

Let's sing of that tale that begins in a faraway village, The best young man was sent on a pilgrimage A long journey to Zion where the heart of the world is To the Promised land beyond the seas Zion's light in his heart to guide his way It will keep him sale and won't lead him astray Soon he will see that holy city See it with his own eyes He'll come back and tell us About the place where our dream lies Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, You are our destiny.

In the song, Jerusalem stands as the focus...