By Jana Banin, JTA
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — World War Z gives us the basics of a summer blockbuster a star actor (Brad Pitt) and a far-fetched action-packed plot (hero races to stop virus that is turning all of humanity into zombies).
So cant we all just buy some popcorn, suspend our disbelief and enjoy the show?
Well, no. The movie features another equally well-known newsmaker, if in this case less publicized: Israel.
The zombie plague is spreading like wildfire, and Pitts character, Gerry Lane, a former UN official turned stay-at-home dad, learns that only two countries have been able to stave off the infection.
One is North Korea, where, in a 24-hour period, the government has removed the teeth of its citizens, making it impossible for the disease to spread.
Then theres Israel, which has built a wall in Jerusalem between the undead and the uninfected.
In the movie we dont see Jerusalem for very long. As zombies storm the citys streets, flights of people hoping for refuge are landing in a place founded by people who not so long ago were refused refuge by most of the world.
Pitt, off to solve the next piece of the puzzle, hops on one of these planes (run by Belarus Airlines), with his new pandemic-fighting partner, a tough female Israeli soldier played by Danielle Kertesz.
But thats all the blogosphere needed to start buzzing for weeks about the deeper meaning of the Israel-related plot line and the message that it sends about Israel and its policies.
Some see the cinematic version as a pro-Israel statement, justifying the existence of a wall in the real-life, non-zombie-ridden West Bank the wall is extreme, but it keeps people safe.
IN the film the wall actually brings Israelis and Palestinians together. In apocalyptic Jerusalem, background is irrelevant. As long as youre not a monster with an appetite for humans, youre cool.
Pitt is there to find out how Israel could have possibly built a structure of that magnitude so quickly not to mention a full week before the pandemic hit in full force.
From a member of the Mossad intelligence agency he learns that the tip came from an intercepted email mentioning zombies.
It seemed crazy, but so had the prospect of the Holocaust, the Munich massacre and the Yom Kippur War. Israel had committed to imagining the unimaginable and preparing for it.
Ultimately, though, the experiment in segregation doesnt work. In a twist, cross-cultural harmony is the walls downfall. Celebrating their survival, everyone joins together in song.
Unfortunately, the joyous masses dont realize that noise arouses the zombies. Oops. Peace, one might deduce, is untenable no matter how much people are willing to move past their differences.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Steven Zeitchik offered up a more optimistic, albeit still daunting, takeaway.
It may well be that theres no single message intended by the film, he wrote. Still, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, for that matter, conflict in general World War Z offers what seems like at least one clear takeaway.
The most aggressive policy wont be useful in the face of a serious threat. A long-term solution probably involves even the most creative form of reactive thinking it requires a willingness to contemplate the root cause.
Try telling that to the folks at Al Jazeera, who compiled a roundup of online commentators and posters who have panned the film as pro-Israel propaganda.
And its not just Israel bashers who think it. As Al Jazeera noted, Jeffrey Goldberg admiringly tweeted, World War Z is the most pro-Israel movie ever made. Or at the very least the most pro-Israel zombie movie ever made.
At the same time, he added, With Israels highly lauded defense reputation, the wall breach surprised me.
COMPLICATING any attempt to discern a concrete message were the deviations from the 2006 novel on which it is based. In World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft), it is not zombies who ruin everything but Orthodox Jews, who rebel after the government decides to pull back to the pre-1967 borders and welcome in Jews and Palestinians. That said, in the book Israels success does hold up.
Back to the film. Together, Pitt and his Israeli friend battle zombies and find the answers that will finally help to pretty much save the day. The movie closes with a voiceover from the lead actor, reminding us that we should always be prepared for anything yeah, like the Internet peanut gallerys ability to turn anything into an Israel debate.