The title “Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989” may not roll off the tongue, but it is a case of truth in advertising. This sprawling, continually engrossing assemblage from Goran Hugo Olsson (“The Black Power Mixtape”) is built entirely from material shown on Swedish public television. Its subject is not only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also how the news was mediated for Swedish viewers by a dominant broadcaster with a mandate for impartiality.
So the film offers both a detailed historical account and a running critique of that account. Some early programs around the 10th anniversary of Israel’s founding skew decidedly upbeat, like “Israel — Land of Wonders,” in which an emigrant from Sweden praises Israel’s “day-fresh” groceries and hospitals “built according to the Swedish model.” In 1964, a show airs a contentious debate between an ambassador and an academic from Sweden over the fate of the Palestinians.
A 1966 segment on youth in Israel includes a lengthy interview with a Bedouin student. “We are lost because there are Jews here that look at us like war captives,” he says, “and the Arabs look on us like enemies because we are living in Israel.”
The correspondent Vanna Beckman emerges as a specialist in reporting from Jordan on Palestinian refugees and resistance ideology, and there is a shift in tone after 1967, when Israel’s victory in the Arab-Israeli war changes the perception of its military strength. Major news events, like the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979, share time with a 1982 visit to the print shop of an Arabic newspaper in the West Bank that we are told is censored from printing local news.
There is no single takeaway from Olsson’s film, which — apart from the musical score’s intermittent mood-setting — presents the footage straightforwardly, inviting viewers to reflect on what is in and out of frame. It’s great TV and an excellent documentary.
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Not rated. In Swedish, English, Hebrew and Arabic, with subtitles. Running time: 3 hours 20 minutes. In theaters.
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