Movie Review: The Human Factor

Documentarian Dror Moreh’s new film, The Human Factor, is a riveting and illuminating examination of American foreign policy in the Middle East since the mid-1980s and through to the promise of the attempt summit at Camp David near the end of Bill Clinton’s tenure as president. This is an incredibly poignant and timely film that illustrates how this region has shaped American foreign policy for the better part of a quarter century.

The Human Factor is a look behind the curtain with those individuals within the United States government whose job it was to attempt to secure peace between Israel and its neighboring countries to establish a Palestinian homeland. But, what makes The Human Factor a more universal treatise on human nature is the approach it takes to the stance of learning from the mistakes of the past so that they are not perpetuated well into the future. Of course, this is a simple enough lesson to accept, but even harder to adhere to as those lessons are seen to clash constantly with individual egos and ambitions to ultimately derail even the most well-thought out plans for peace.

Constructed around interviews, conducted by director Moreh, with Gamal Helal (senior Arabic interpreter and special Middle East envoy), Martin Indyk (a two-time U.S. Ambassador to Israel), Daniel Kurtzer (a former ambassador to both Egypt and Israel), Robert Malley (the special assistant to President Bill Clinton for Arab-Israeli affairs), Aaron Mill (a State Department analyst specializing in the Middle East), and Dennis Ross (an advisor on the Middle East to four presidential administrations), The Human Factor succeeds in giving the diplomatic process an identity and, if you will, a soul. Which makes it all the more infuriating when it ultimately fails to come to fruition and the conflicts inevitably resume.

There is also a powerful history lesson within the frames of The Human Factor as the American attempts to broker peace culminate with the prime minister of Israel, Yitzhaz Rabin, shaking hands with Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat while attending a summit at the White House. Then, of course, tragedy struck when Rabin was assassinated, and it would be over half a decade later before the uneasy peace would ultimately be brokered.

Tragically though, that truce would not last and the American effort to secure peace in that region of the world would ultimately fail. But, The Human Factor maintains that this was not for lack of trying or the absence of a desire for peace on any side, only that it was not the right time, but perhaps someday that time will come.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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