This film involves a Palestinian girl growing up in the orphanage of a remarkable woman who has made a home for more than a thousand children. It's meant to be a "film for peace", a study of the destruction caused by the policies of the Israeli state.
Whereas Before Night Falls did a brilliant assassination of Castro's Cuba by focussing on its disastrous consequences for the gay poet Arenas, Miral take much broader aim and, perhaps as a consequence, misses.
The film is visually ravishing, full of what we might now think of as trademark Schnabel compositions (trees whirling around above our heads; the sound design of someone entering the sea).
There are times of huge emotion and almost shocking cynical brutality. Alas, some of the dialogue sequences feel staged and wooden, as if Schnabel is trying to give a quick primer about this vicious conflict to morons who know nothing about world affairs.
Don't let me put you off seeing Miral: it's a vastly better film than almost anything that gets released into cinemas. But don't go expecting it to be as good as Before Night Falls: that way lies disappointment and madness.
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