When the movie you’re seeing is at Cinema Village, you know it’s not going to be the blockbuster, Oscar-winning, Disney-approved type. The Greenwich Village locale is known for its choice of foreign and indie films, the Sundance winners, and the odd ones you’re just not gonna get at the AMC down the block. When a friend let me know that our Saturday night plans involved the theater on 12th street and said not much else, I drew on my prior experiences to prepare. Would it be a foreign film, my eyes straining to read subtitles as rapid, meaningless words in a foreign tongue which came out of strange actor’s mouths who clearly were lovers but I knew not much else? Or maybe it would be in black and white where attendees dressed like The Rocky Horror Picture Show would clomp down the aisles, giving me goosebumps and a lot of anxiety as a feather boa tickled my right arm.
Nadav Schirman’s The Green Prince, however, was none of those things. The astonishing story of a Hamas leader’s son, his recruitment and subsequent time as an informant for the Israeli Shin Bet is the narrative told in this extraordinary documentary. Much is confusing and not all is answered, but the film’s exploration of the choices we make, shame, betrayal and friendship leaves the audience reeling in a spy story almost too good to be true.
Told in a back-and-forth between Mosab Hassan Yousef and his former Shin Bet handler, Gonen ben Yitzchak, The Green Prince begins as the Palestinian teen lands in Israeli prison for smuggling arms. The son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a prominent member of Hamas, Mr. Yousef begins his espionage career after his stint in jail disillusions him of his father’s terrorist organization. The risks he takes play out over thrilling real-life events, as information relayed affects Israeli intelligence on suicide attacks, the location of terrorist hideouts and a whole more, and the concept of reality blurs as the spy leads a double life.
The ten years Mr. Yousef spends in the intelligence world are not sugarcoated. His manipulation by the Shin Bet and increasing unwillingness to bend to their will pushes his handler to break the conventional rules as the relationship between the two develops. As the documentary features the two, separate but telling of two sides of the same story, footage, news clips and gripping reenactments accompany personal memories that keep the viewer aware of the risks and betrayal that permeate the documentary and make the story all the more real.
It is the chilling moments of The Green Prince, coupled with its release at a time when tensions in the Middle East are high, that make the film worth seeing. The story leaves plenty of room for more explanation, but is fast-paced enough to make sure you don’t mind. The film’s emotional twists and turns certainly keep up the pace, and Mr. Yousef’s true story and journey are better than a night reading an espionage novel at home or watching Homeland.