Divine Intervention (Chronicle of Love and Pain)

Elia Suleiman - 2002
I don't know Tati well enough to compare, but what I mean by the Tati aspect is a still camera with long focus takes, and the use of the body in that machine-like way. The audience can see the whole picture, using as much depth for the space as horizontals, to create a kind of absurdist suspense as understanding. Without quite the industry of rats.
Suleiman uses his face as always on the verge of smiling, but never quite. This is maybe a little more self-conscious than 'The Time That Remains' (one, for me, of the finest films I have seen from recent times) in its use of expressionless acting, clearly Bressonian influenced in its functionality. Their is a high degreee of self-consciousness.
Suleiman is not afraid to cut in, for all the full compositions, also. His sound gags aren't unrealist in the Tati sense I know.
In a way, this is an explanation, though I wouldn't really call it an apology, for why one would be goaded to violence. It can occassionally get a little comic book, devices used to show the mentality of terrorism, generally, while at the same time recognizing a common humanity of all people. I found it a little stylised and unsure of that style, thus short of the later work ('The Time That Remains'), but still formally very noticeable.