NAZA, a documentary by directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, features anonymised members of Israeli intelligence discussing their remote execution of the assault on Gaza. The film, produced by the Guardian, confronts viewers with difficult questions about the banality of evil and the ethics of giving voice to those who carry out atrocities.
Perpetrator cinema and its legacy
The term "banality of evil," coined by philosopher Hannah Arendt to describe Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, is invoked in the film by one of the subjects themselves. These articulate, middle-class millennials describe themselves as leftwing and non-racist, yet one remarks they have been conducting a genocide.
NAZA joins a genre sometimes called perpetrator cinema, which includes Joshua Oppenheimer's 2013 film The Act of Killing, featuring members of 1960s Indonesian death squads, and Errol Morris's Standard Operating Procedure, which interviewed US soldiers who abused Iraqis at Abu Ghraib jail. Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, about the Auschwitz commandant, is also cited; Glazer serves as an executive producer of NAZA.
Questions of complicity and understanding
These films raise the question of who commits crimes against humanity. NAZA features Tel Aviv high-fliers citing the October 7 attacks as justification, while Standard Operating Procedure portrays ordinary soldiers in the "war on terror," and The Act of Killing shows ageing thugs recreating their murders as action movies.
Some critics argue NAZA privileges the perpetrator, with Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha posting that the last three years in Gaza have already been documented by Gazans, asking "So what will this film add?" The Israeli government has floated stripping the directors of their citizenship.
The power and limits of perpetrator testimony
In Killing Anna, Syrian army officers were catfished into discussing massacres by an academic posing as a loyalist. But most perpetrators are aware they are being recorded, yet show little remorse. Abraham has said some of his interviewees spoke from "the opposite of shame."
These films often reveal unseen hierarchies, directing attention to politicians and generals whose lies to their own people are laid bare. A rebuttal film, Naza: The Real Story, has been launched by the Netanyahu government.
Palestinian film-maker Rami Younis recalled director Hany Abu-Assad's words: "What do you think happens when you keep demonising your enemy? What happens to you?" NAZA, like The Act of Killing, reminds viewers that being human involves being capable of evil. The film is in cinemas worldwide and will screen on the Guardian's website from late November.
