Excellent movie! But I was puzzled by the financial situation: how can the Al-Bezaaz family afford to send Yacine to school in Paris (and they apparently drive a Mercedes), when the father works as a (not very successful) auto mechanic?
shareWell Palestinians typically have many international connections due to forced migrations as refugees to other parts of the world. Many who move elsewhere in the middle east have family that is usually in Jordan, Syria or Egypt, and shared guardianship is quite common in the culture.
Yacine lived with his mom's sister in the movie. The sister lived in France and so probably had him sponsored and helps pay for his education. Furthermore, Yacine is shown to be an intelligent young man so my guess is his studies would have been the result of a scholarship or fund. However I still haven't finished the film and if I missed something then correct me.
With the car my guess is that the West Bank is such a disputed and war-torn region that many abandoned their homes and propeties/died so unusual luxuries like Mercedes are left to those still alive and living there. (Sort of like all the luxuries and private properties stolen from estates in Italy and France in WWII) His father is an engineer so he probably fixed the car up and used it for himself.
dynamite6000 very good answer. Palestinians are very clannish. The ones who leave the economically devastated Palestinian territories to make their fortune are extremely hard working and often open businesses, like my friends, 5 brothers from Ramallah, who established party stores, a night club, a granite company and other businesses. Their children all go to university and become lawyers, engineers, doctors. They all send money to their hometown to help their relatives. I know that they have sent cars, refrigerators, stoves, etc. to their families. The Palestinians in the diaspora also bring their relatives to study or work in their adopted countries, where life is much more beneficial. Uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings help their kinsfolk as soon as they can afford it. Yacine's father is an engineer and could be earning a good salary but he cannot find a position in the West Bank nor is he allowed to work in Israel, according to what Bilal said. Who knows, the Mercedes might have been purchased when times were better in the West Bank. The place has gone to hell since the intifadas.
shareYacine lived with an aunt in Paris. He possibly had a scholarship or funding from relatives to attend medial school The Mercedes may well have been acquired through the garage where his father worked from someone who was getting rid of it, traded it in or could not afford repairs. When I lived in that part of the world, just about every other vehicle was a Merc.
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