Everyone has an origins that has impacted them in either a positive or negative way or sometimes even both. The 2009 film Amreeka is directed by Cherien Dabis, and tells us about a remarkable journey between a mother and son in order to find a better life. The film begins with the mother Muna (Nisreen Faour) and son Fadi (Melkar Muallem) living in Pakistan under the harsh rules and regulations of Israeli’s checkpoints to go about their daily routines. When one day Muna goes to open her mail, and stumbles upon a letter which read she now able to obtain her green card.
In an effort to give her son a better life Muna and fudi travel to America to stay with Muna’s sister Raghda (Hiam Abbass). Once they reach America, Muna faces the ultimate challenge to regain all her money lost in a cookie tin due to customs not letting the tin to pass. While Muna searches endlessly for jobs, fudi enrolls in a public school where he is bullied and harassed. The film reaches its climax when fudi classmates and friends influence him to be this rough, uptight person he is not and Muna job search fails and she finds herself working at white castle.
The films ends with fudi leaning who he really is and what he appericates, and Muna being accepting about where she works. The scene in the movie that stuck out to me the most was when Muna and Fudi are at an Israel checkpoint, and fudi is taken out of the car and harassed. This scene to me captures the most important life lessons taught to fudi and Muna by their origins. The scene begins with Muna and fadi driving down a dirt road in a little red car with a rosary hanging from the inside middle mirror.
Further down the road the car is stopped by a tall white male dressed in camouflage army cloths. In a harsh tone the white male officer asks for the ids of Muna and fadi. As soon as Muna hands over a little green pamphlet, her heads falls a little downward in fear and nervousness as well as fadi’s. The officer examines the pamphlet closely and takes at glance at the inside and outside of the car. The officer then questions Muna about where she lives, and she replies Bethlehem.
He goes on to ask, “What is your house number? “, and she relies that she doesn’t have one. The officer has a confused look on his face and waves the green pamphlet in front of Muna’s face and says, “I need to know your house number, give me your house number. ” As Muna’s face cringes, fadi in a care free tone says “why? Are you going to come visit us? ” This angers the officer and he screams, “Get out. ” Muna tries to stress to the checkpoint officer that he was just kidding but the officer won’t have.
Fadi is forced out of the car and the officer tell him to lift his shirt up. The camera angle begins to change between Muna’s view and the audience’s view of this scene. In Muna view you see fudi being harassed by the officer, while in the audiences view you can see Muna’s face filed with anger and fear. Lastly, the scene ends with the little red car driving on the road. This scene shows the most important life lessons taught to fadi and Muna by their origin for one reason that the people from their origins aren’t very nice.
This is shown in the this scene when the officer ask for Muna and fadi’s ids in a very harsh tone and when the officer forcefully tells fadi to lift his shirt up while he was harassing him. This scene explains an important life lesson taught because Muna and fadi learned to deal and have patience with people that weren’t aren’t very kind. Another lesson taught to them is rules/ regulations with little freedom. This is shown in the scene when Muna is forced to stop a checkpoints and answer whatever questions they ask.
This explains an important lesson taught by her origins because Muna has learned to obit to strict and harsh rules. Lastly, Muna and fadi learned the lesson that life is had from their origins. This is shown when Muna has to travel through checkpoints just to accomplish simple tasks like going to work or dropping fundi at school. This explains an important lesson taught by origins because Muna learns to the deal with the hardships of everyday life. In conclusion, a single scene from Amreeka can really pact in a lot of important lessons taught by Muna and fadi’s origins.
The checkpoint scene where Muna and fadi are pulled over to check ids and where fadi is harassed, is one of the most important scenes. This scene touches upon lessons from dealing with people that are not very nice, strict rules and regulations and how to obit by them, and lastly that life is hard but it can be dealt with. These aspects are important because they created the person Muna and fudi are today. With your origins you can learn to embrace the good parts and learn for the bad parts and that’s exactly what Muna and Fadi did.