It Must Be Heaven review – frustrating anti-comedy barely raises a smile

Sometimes fascinating, but mostly patience-testing, It Must Be Heaven sees Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman take his signature deadpan style on a world tour, taking us through Nazareth, Paris, and New York via a series of lightly comic vignettes that mostly outstay their welcome.

Starring as a lightly fictionalised version of himself, Suleiman’s vague plot revolves around him traveling from continent to continent in an attempt to secure funding for his next film. The strongest set of vignettes come in the first third, before Suleiman leaves Nazareth. He bears silent witness to a series of absurdities and injustices, from a neighbour who’s taken an unhealthy level of interest in Suleiman’s lemon tree, to two Israeli police officers comparing sunglasses whilst a Palestinian woman sits blindfolded in the back of their car.

Commentary on the desperate state of abuse against Palestinians continues throughout, Suleiman constantly finding himself surrounded by uncaring police wherever he goes and being rejected for funding because his proposed film isn’t “Palestinian” (read: tragic and exoticised) enough.

While there is some power in these moments, and some striking imagery to go with them, It Must Be Heaven is still mostly frustrating. This is an ostensible comedy that doesn’t raise a single laugh – even a wry smile is too much to ask for most scenes. Suleiman’s silent, unblinking gaze invites comparison to the works of Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati, but their films reliably built to identifiable jokes and punchlines, which almost never happens here.

An absurdly over-extended skit of Suleiman staring at Parisian women’s legs announces his arrival in France, and from that point on, It Must Be Heaven is often an exercise in tongue-in-cheek tedium that makes you work very hard to get anything out of it – an endeavour that never feels worth the effort.

It Must Be Heaven is now showing in cinemas.