Mark Reviews Movies: MAYOR

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 1, 2020

The city of Ramallah, at the center of the West Bank, has become the unofficial capital of the Palestinian government, and Musa Hadid has been the city's mayor since 2012. Director David Osit's Mayor follows Hadid over the course of a year, as he deals with festivities and other distractions, in order to make life and his work a little more bearable under the circumstances.

The story begins in December of 2017, as the traditionally Christian city prepares for its annual Christmas celebrations. On the other side of the world, though, the President of the United States has declared his intentions to make a controversial move—specifically, moving the U.S. embassy of Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That would mean the United States officially recognizing the contested city as the capital of Israel.

That's the backdrop, filled with protests and Israeli soldiers moving closer and closer to the heart of Ramallah, but in the foreground, the film is mostly about Hadid, trying to keep the Christmas and, as the year progresses Easter celebrations going, while also running into other problems—a garbage fire and sewage leakage in the streets. "I literally can't deal with this s---," the mayor says, and it's only partially a joke.

The city government, as is the case with any population and municipality in these territories, has no power over its land. Hadid, who's quite popular with the people of the city (They greet him as he walks to and from city hall), could provide a sewage treatment plant for Ramallah, but his hands are tied by this policy.

He could do a lot of things, and he knows it. Instead, the mayor focuses his attention on people dressed as Santa repelling down the sides of buildings, a new restaurant in the city center, and the running of a song-and-light show of the fountain outside city hall.

It's all he can do, and while it's vaguely amusing to see Hadid's narrow focus amidst the rising turmoil, there's a tragic impotence behind all of this. One of the running conversations in Mayor is how the city and, more broadly, the Palestinian people can best communicate their situation to the world, and this documentary, which simply shows people trying to keep their lives going as their routines and rights are constantly and repeatedly diminished, is more than a good start.

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