It comes as a slight surprise to “Yalla Parkour” director Areeb Zuaiter that Ahmed, a person she met over the internet based in Gaza, describes himself as a filmmaker, despite the fact that she first learned of him through the videos he made of his friends hopping across the ruins of their homeland as if they were making their own version of “District 13.” She confesses she isn’t all that enamored of the sport first developed in France where cityscapes could become gymnasiums for acrobatics, but she is eager to see the backdrops of where Ahmed has filmed as it gives her a glimpse of Palestine that isn’t likely to make it onto the news in the U.S. where she now resides.
The differences in how Zuaiter and Ahmed value what he’s captured becomes an interesting question in “Yalla Parkour,” which unfolds over the better part of a decade as the professional documentarian keeps up an ongoing dialogue with the amateur and what he mostly sees as a way out of the war-torn region, she sees as a way in for the rest of the world. Having heard stories about the country’s beauty from her mother that she can’t remember herself having been too young when she fled, Zuaiter starts to live vicariously through the action-packed videos that Ahmed produces when going herself even circa 2015 doesn’t sound like a reasonable option when she fears her passport could be confiscated. He is no doubt excited to hear from her when his friend Muhammad famously found his way into Europe after videos of him leaping off buildings went viral and Ahmed can only hope the same for himself.
Obviously, Zuaiter and Ahmed can’t be in the same room together, so their interactions are largely confined to the footage he shot at the start of “Yalla Parkour,” and besides conversing with him, Zuaiter begins a second conversation with her mother to describe why she’s so invested in talking to Ahmed. The film eventually opens up both literally and figuratively as Ahmed pursues a visa and a crew comes to film him, but it’s most affecting as it illuminates the very idea of limitations when both Zuaiter and Ahmed’s lives have been so defined by their constraints and the director comes to learn such details as the fact that Ahmed has only been to the Mediterranean Sea that she lusts after herself about as much when it involves so many security checkpoints it doesn’t seem like it’s worth the effort. Having subjects on both sides of the border ends up showing where the lines are.
Zuaiter wasn’t wrong to think there was something worthwhile in Ahmed’s footage that he couldn’t necessarily see for himself and as he and his friends try to turn their bad fortune into fun, the ability of the human spirit to endure the most dire of circumstances is inspirational, yet the film is oddly structured when Zuaiter would seem to lose touch with Ahmed around 2016 and reconnects with him in 2023, doing its own Parkour-esque backflips to fill the gap and losing a bit of momentum in the process when some of Ahmed’s personal backstory would’ve been more interesting earlier. However, “Yalla Parkour” nonetheless can’t help but resonate when all involved know what the future holds for Palestine when Zuaiter revisits Ahmed and the end credits reveal a number of people associated with the film lost their lives. When it’ll ultimately be up to conversations like the one Zuaiter and Ahmed share to keep memories alive of their homeland, the film offers a vibrant one that will hopefully lead to others.
“Yalla Parkour” will screen again at Berlinale on February 20th at 10:30 am at Cubix 7, February 21st at 1 pm at Zoo Palast 2, and February 22nd at 10:30 am at Cubix 7.