IDFA 2024: Rule of Stone (dir. Danae Elon) | Review
Danae Elon examines Israeli architecture as an instrument of the systematic and infernal machine of colonialism in Rule of Stone, a powerful narrative dissecting the territorial and cultural appropriation of Palestine, where beauty masks violence, and construction conceals destruction.
What could be more static than stone? What could be more immovable than a stone, especially one that appears centuries-old and supports the buildings of a city? By focusing on Jerusalem stone, whose use has been mandated for all new construction in the city since the British Mandate in Palestine, Danae Elon’s Rule of Stone highlights a particularly striking and revealing paradox in the policies pursued by the Israeli state since its inception. The immobility of the stone contrasts sharply with the relentless colonial dynamism of Israeli territorial expansion.
Factually, the film exposes the “rule of stone,” a law enacted during the British Mandate to promote the use of Jerusalem stone in new buildings, giving the city its distinctive, high-quality aesthetic. Following the British Empire’s footsteps, the governing bodies of Jerusalem adopted this law. In 1967, the Naksa forced about 300,000 Palestinians into exile, expelled from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, enabling Israel to swallow East Jerusalem. Around Jerusalem, a rapid topographical transformation ensued. Palestinian lands seized by the Israeli state fell under the “rule of stone.” Not only did new settler villages spring up on Palestinian land, but Palestinian homes suddenly became non-compliant with the rule of stone and had to be demolished, either by Israeli forces or by the Palestinians themselves. This leads to some of the film’s most heartbreaking scenes, where Palestinians demolish their own homes to avoid substantial fines imposed by the colonial power. The film also follows the story of a Palestinian man who had to dismantle his own house. An isolated man, stripped of his belongings and left destitute—this is the outcome of the meticulously orchestrated annexation and territorial appropriation by the Israeli state.
Territorial appropriation is compounded by cultural and historical appropriation. By working Jerusalem stone, often hand-chiseling it—usually by Palestinian laborers—the city of Jerusalem and its surroundings don a stone that seems to have always been there, instantly marking a centuries-old presence, as if these lands have always been Jewish, thereby normalizing the confiscation of Palestinian lands. As one of the film’s protagonists notes, the new Jewish villages on Palestinian lands constructed with Jerusalem stone are “built in a second, as if they were here forever.”
The stone makes the city so beautiful, so majestic. “It’s mandatory [to use the stone of Jerusalem], but it’s also beautiful,” insists one of the interviewed architects. This splendor could deceive visitors and observers if Danae Elon did not accomplish this work of unveiling the truth. Beauty to mask the violence of colonialism. Construction—with Jerusalem stone—to conceal the destruction of Palestinian lands. These are the ingredients for crafting an ideology, a discourse, and a hegemonic history.
While the film’s form appears conventional, relying on several on-camera testimonies from Israeli architects and urban planners involved in the major construction projects initiated around Jerusalem post-Naksa, including Moshe Safdie, it gradually reveals its personality, grounded in the filmmaker’s personal journey, shaped by her memories—she grew up in Jerusalem—and her questions. Elon reflects on the responsibility of these architects, and directly confronts them. Are they merely cogs in a system? Does that absolve them of responsibility? Are they aware that they are using their discipline, expertise, and art as instruments of colonialism and apartheid? The admissions are telling, and the deliberate blindness of these agents of a systematic colonial project recalls other human complicities in the worst tragedies of history. As one female architect in the film remarks, “When you don’t want to see something, you don’t see it.”
Rule of Stone is an important, revealing, and incisive film. By focusing on what seems banal or trivial, i.e., Jerusalem stone, it manages to draw the framework of the Israeli colonial system, this infernal machine that absorbs and engulfs Arab otherness. In doing so, the film enables anyone to decode the mechanisms of seven decades of annexations, exactions, and ethnic cleansing.
Towards the end of the film, one scene visually summarizes the reality unveiled by the film. On the outskirts of Jerusalem’s Old City, at Damascus Gate, dozens of Arabs gather during Ramadan, chanting praises to God. It takes little for them to be swiftly evicted by Israeli police forces. On the same square, young Israelis then flood the space, waving their blue and white flags, filling and appropriating the area previously occupied by Palestinians.
Accompanied by a poignant and profound musical score, tinged with melancholy born of pain, sorrow, and grief, yet carrying a breath that, despite so much injustice, does not capitulate and leaves room for the small flame of resilience, Rule of Stone skillfully reveals the often invisible violence of Israeli colonization and prompts reflection on the normalization of cruelty and injustice at the foundations of Israeli colonialism against the Palestinian people.
Rule of Stone debuted in the International Competition of IDFA 2024.
