Admissions (2011) - full transcript
Admissions is a short film starring Academy Award nominee James Cromwell that tells a transformational tale about what it takes to find lasting peace, even in war-torn places like the Middle East. Featuring an Israeli couple and a Palestinian man, this modern parable is set in the Admissions Room for the afterlife. Its purpose is to start a conversation that heals.
[DOOR OPENING]
CLERK: Welcome.
AHMAD: Where am I?
CLERK: Admissions.
-AHMAD: For what?
-CLERK: The afterlife.
AHMAD: Are you Allah?
CLERK: No.
Please, have a seat.
[DOOR OPENING]
-CLERK: Welcome.
-[DOOR CLOSING]
ELI: Excuse me.
-Do you know where we are?
-CLERK: Admissions.
-ELI: Admissions?
-CLERK: For the afterlife.
Please have a seat.
[CLOCK CHIMES]
DAPHNA:
Do you need our names?
CLERK: No,
they no longer apply.
-AHMAD: Can I please ask a question?
-CLERK: Of course.
AHMAD: Where is Allah?
ELI: Yes,
and where is God?
CLERK:
With you always.
DAPHNA:
And who are you?
CLERK:
I'm just a clerk.
AHMAD:
What are you writing down?
CLERK: Nothing.
I'm just doodling.
ELI: Why won't you tell
us what's going on?
CLERK: I have.
Speaker 3:
Then why are we here?
CLERK:
Like I said, admissions.
AHMAD: Can you please
give us a straight answer?
CLERK: I just have.
AHMAD: Well,
what are we supposed to do here?
CLERK: It's admissions.
Say whatever you want.
Anything you feel you want
to get off your chest.
ELI: But, my wife and I,
we don't believe in Hell.
We just always tried
to do what was right
and live our lives
according to the Torah.
If there is a world to come,
we should be allowed in.
AHMAD: I, too,
have tried to live a good life
according to the Koran.
So if there is
a paradise to come,
seems I should be allowed in too.
DAPHNA:
Are we being judged?
CLERK: No,
everybody makes mistakes.
If that kept people out
of the world to come,
Heaven would be empty.
We keep it simple.
Everybody always gets treated equally.
Eleven more minutes
and we'll be done.
Then you have the rest of eternity.
AHMAD: I don't want eternity
unless it's with Allah.
When can I see Allah?
CLERK: May I give you
a little piece of brotherly advice?
Focus on the here and now.
AHMAD:
What do you mean?
CLERK: The past
and the future don't really exist.
The only thing you need
to be concerned with...
is right now.
DAPHNA: Can I ask a question?
-CLERK: Of course, anything you like.
-DAPHNA: What happened?
I mean... [HUFFS]
How did we get here?
We don't remember.
CLERK: The transition
gives everyone a kind of...
temporary amnesia.
Don't worry.
It'll wear off in a minute.
DAPHNA: Please.
I would like to know now.
What happened
to my husband and me?
CLERK:
You were in a cafe.
In Tel Aviv.
Having lunch.
There was an explosion.
DAPHNA:
What caused it?
CLERK:
It was a bomb.
Speaker 3:
Who left it there?
-CLERK: It wasn't left.
-ELI: What do you mean.
CLERK: I believe
the current terminology is...
a suicide bomb.
Speaker 3:
We have two young children.
They're all alone now.
AHMAD: I am so sorry.
I'm confused.
We are from different religions.
We pray to different Gods.
CLERK: Yes.
AHMAD: Which God
are we waiting to see?
CLERK: Everyone's free to believe
in whatever God they choose to.
It's just that right now,
your beliefs are
no longer important.
-CLERK: Only the truth is.
-AHMAD: So tell us the truth.
CLERK: You're here together
because you died together.
Sometimes when people die together,
they go through admissions together.
Speaker 3:
We died together?
DAPHNA: How many people
died in the explosion?
CLERK: Three.
DAPHNA:
Were you eating at the cafe?
Speaker 3:
What were you eating?
-DAPHNA: What did you order?
-ELI: Are you the suicide bomber?
-AHMAD: Please. I want to see Allah.
-ELI: Is he the bomber?
-CLERK: Yes.
-AHMAD: I need to speak with Allah please.
ELI: You killed us.
How could you put us
with this murderer?
CLERK:
Does it seem crowded?
You should see it during a war.
[LAUGHS] We all get
a lot of overtime.
ELI: How can you
make a joke? He's a murderer!
CLERK: I'm not joking.
-DAPHNA: He killed us.
-CLERK: Yes, he did.
And do you have any idea how many times
I've seen this same scenario?
In the 20th century,
man murdered over a hundred and 60 million
of his fellow human beings
for all kinds of reasons.
Your murder may have come
as a shock to you, but in here...
we've all been witness to
this kind of thing for a long,
long time.
Speaker 3:
How could you do that to us?
We're innocent victims.
AHMAD: No Israeli is innocent.
You steal our land,
you bomb our cities, you treat us
like slaves in our homeland.
ELI: This is not
your homeland, it is ours.
AHMAD:
How is it your homeland,
when there were already
people there when you arrived?
Speaker 3:
We were pushed out first.
AHMAD: Then you should
understand what it feels like.
ELI: We only took back
what was rightfully ours.
AHMAD: Yeah, tell that to the millions
of refugees you displaced.
What gives you the right
to that homeland?
Superior military?
DAPHNA:
What gives you the right?
You turned my children
into orphans.
We did nothing to you.
AHMAD: Nothing?
You have no idea
what it's like to be persecuted,
to have no hope
for a future.
ELI: My grandparents
died in the Holocaust.
How dare you talk to me
about persecution?
AHMAD: I had nothing
to do with the Holocaust.
I wasn't even born,
and neither were you.
I'm talking about today.
DAPHNA: And today,
we were sitting there,
minding our own business,
and you murdered us.
AHMAD:
Minding your own business?
You elect your leaders.
You put them in power.
ELI: What does that
have to do with anything?
AHMAD: You sent tank shells
into my neighborhood.
DAPHNA:
That was not us.
AHMAD: My two daughters
were at home, studying for school.
Amira was six.
AHMAD:
Kayla was seven.
AHMAD: I had to pick...
pieces of their bodies
and put them in garbage bags.
AHMAD: Two days later,
I found my wife in a bathtub
soaking in her own blood.
AHMAD: So you tell me exactly
what did I do to deserve this?
ELI: You and your terrorists
have been murdering people for decades.
AHMAD: So has your government.
Speaker 3:
We are not our government.
But now I see
our government was right.
AHMAD: Oh you see?
You think Palestinians deserve this?
ELI: Israelis don't
strap bombs to their bodies
and go blow up innocent people.
AHMAD: You do it from
a distance just like cowards.
ELI: You are a barbarian.
We had nothing to do--
AHMAD: You are just
as guilty as your leaders.
ELI: Why is he still here?
If there is a hell,
-he should go straight there.
-DAPHNA: Harry.
CLERK: Fortunately,
we don't leave that up to you.
ELI: He left
our children without parents.
What type of heaven is this?
For servants of Allah,
not Zionist oppressors and killers.
-You are the killer.
-AHMAD: Israeli's the killer.
DAPHNA: Stop it!
Stop it, stop it, stop it!
Stop it, just stop, stop it.
Speaker 3:
Stop what? He killed us.
DAPHNA: Stop fighting.
-ELI: We lost our lives.
-DAPHNA: Yes, yes.
But we can't go back.
Haven't you been listening?
Speaker 3:
We were innocent victims.
DAPHNA: Yes, we were.
But so was he.
He did not deserve
what happened to him.
To see his daughters like that.
Ellie, he was trying
to live his life, just like us.
ELI: But he killed us.
DAPHNA: Yes, yes,
and so it is with us.
DAPHNA: The fighting,
the hatred, it can stop.
DAPHNA: I'm sad.
And I'm angry, and I hurt.
And I don't understand
why you did it.
DAPHNA: [INHALES] But I understand
the pain of losing your children.
-DAPHNA: I forgive you.
-ELI: What?
DAPHNA: I'm sorry.
DAPHNA:
For what our government's done.
And for the suffering
we've caused to a new family.
DAPHNA: For that...
-[SNIFFLES]
-I must ask you forgiveness.
[SIGHS]
AHMAD: Yes.
Speaker 3:
How dare you!
He left our children
without parents.
Have you lost your mind?
DAPHNA: No.
DAPHNA: I've regained it.
-[CLOCK CHIMES]
CLERK: Time's up.
CLERK: One at a time please.
ELI: Who goes first?
CLERK:
That's also up to you.
ELI: Go to heaven.
I will see you shortly.
Go on.
DAPHNA: Forgive him.
Speaker 3:
We've lived a good life.
I don't need to forgive him
to get into heaven.
DAPHNA: Without forgiveness,
there can be no heaven.
ELI: Go on.
I will see you shortly.
ELI: Go on.
CLERK:
Please stop at the line.
[DOOR OPENS]
CLERK: Next.
[SOUND]
CLERK:
Please stop at the line.
[SOUND]
CLERK: You might want
to try listening to your wife.
You can't want hell for other people
without being in hell yourself.
CLERK: Next.
CLERK: Please stop at the line.
AHMAD: I get to go to heaven,
after how I hurt her?
I've been so full of hatred.
CLERK: The one's
who find it hardest to love,
need love the most.
AHMAD: Who goes in there?
CLERK: No one.
It's just a prop.
Hell is the world's nightmare.
It's not reality.
And everlasting peace
doesn't come from falling asleep.
It comes from waking up.
CLERK:
You were created from love,
for the sole purpose of love.
Murder is a contradiction, whether it's
done by governments or individuals because...
it goes against what you truly are.
Love neither attacks, nor condemns.
And when you can forgive those
who attack and condemn you,
that's when you know it's really love.
AHMAD:
[SIGHS] Thank you.
CLERK: Thank God.
And you're welcome.
-[CLERK SIGHS]
-[DOOR CLOSES]
CLERK: Welcome.
[DOOR CLOSES]
CLERK:
Please, have a seat.
[SIGHS]
[DOOR OPENS]
CLERK: Welcome.
[DOOR CLOSES]
♪♪
CLERK: Welcome.
AHMAD: Where am I?
CLERK: Admissions.
-AHMAD: For what?
-CLERK: The afterlife.
AHMAD: Are you Allah?
CLERK: No.
Please, have a seat.
[DOOR OPENING]
-CLERK: Welcome.
-[DOOR CLOSING]
ELI: Excuse me.
-Do you know where we are?
-CLERK: Admissions.
-ELI: Admissions?
-CLERK: For the afterlife.
Please have a seat.
[CLOCK CHIMES]
DAPHNA:
Do you need our names?
CLERK: No,
they no longer apply.
-AHMAD: Can I please ask a question?
-CLERK: Of course.
AHMAD: Where is Allah?
ELI: Yes,
and where is God?
CLERK:
With you always.
DAPHNA:
And who are you?
CLERK:
I'm just a clerk.
AHMAD:
What are you writing down?
CLERK: Nothing.
I'm just doodling.
ELI: Why won't you tell
us what's going on?
CLERK: I have.
Speaker 3:
Then why are we here?
CLERK:
Like I said, admissions.
AHMAD: Can you please
give us a straight answer?
CLERK: I just have.
AHMAD: Well,
what are we supposed to do here?
CLERK: It's admissions.
Say whatever you want.
Anything you feel you want
to get off your chest.
ELI: But, my wife and I,
we don't believe in Hell.
We just always tried
to do what was right
and live our lives
according to the Torah.
If there is a world to come,
we should be allowed in.
AHMAD: I, too,
have tried to live a good life
according to the Koran.
So if there is
a paradise to come,
seems I should be allowed in too.
DAPHNA:
Are we being judged?
CLERK: No,
everybody makes mistakes.
If that kept people out
of the world to come,
Heaven would be empty.
We keep it simple.
Everybody always gets treated equally.
Eleven more minutes
and we'll be done.
Then you have the rest of eternity.
AHMAD: I don't want eternity
unless it's with Allah.
When can I see Allah?
CLERK: May I give you
a little piece of brotherly advice?
Focus on the here and now.
AHMAD:
What do you mean?
CLERK: The past
and the future don't really exist.
The only thing you need
to be concerned with...
is right now.
DAPHNA: Can I ask a question?
-CLERK: Of course, anything you like.
-DAPHNA: What happened?
I mean... [HUFFS]
How did we get here?
We don't remember.
CLERK: The transition
gives everyone a kind of...
temporary amnesia.
Don't worry.
It'll wear off in a minute.
DAPHNA: Please.
I would like to know now.
What happened
to my husband and me?
CLERK:
You were in a cafe.
In Tel Aviv.
Having lunch.
There was an explosion.
DAPHNA:
What caused it?
CLERK:
It was a bomb.
Speaker 3:
Who left it there?
-CLERK: It wasn't left.
-ELI: What do you mean.
CLERK: I believe
the current terminology is...
a suicide bomb.
Speaker 3:
We have two young children.
They're all alone now.
AHMAD: I am so sorry.
I'm confused.
We are from different religions.
We pray to different Gods.
CLERK: Yes.
AHMAD: Which God
are we waiting to see?
CLERK: Everyone's free to believe
in whatever God they choose to.
It's just that right now,
your beliefs are
no longer important.
-CLERK: Only the truth is.
-AHMAD: So tell us the truth.
CLERK: You're here together
because you died together.
Sometimes when people die together,
they go through admissions together.
Speaker 3:
We died together?
DAPHNA: How many people
died in the explosion?
CLERK: Three.
DAPHNA:
Were you eating at the cafe?
Speaker 3:
What were you eating?
-DAPHNA: What did you order?
-ELI: Are you the suicide bomber?
-AHMAD: Please. I want to see Allah.
-ELI: Is he the bomber?
-CLERK: Yes.
-AHMAD: I need to speak with Allah please.
ELI: You killed us.
How could you put us
with this murderer?
CLERK:
Does it seem crowded?
You should see it during a war.
[LAUGHS] We all get
a lot of overtime.
ELI: How can you
make a joke? He's a murderer!
CLERK: I'm not joking.
-DAPHNA: He killed us.
-CLERK: Yes, he did.
And do you have any idea how many times
I've seen this same scenario?
In the 20th century,
man murdered over a hundred and 60 million
of his fellow human beings
for all kinds of reasons.
Your murder may have come
as a shock to you, but in here...
we've all been witness to
this kind of thing for a long,
long time.
Speaker 3:
How could you do that to us?
We're innocent victims.
AHMAD: No Israeli is innocent.
You steal our land,
you bomb our cities, you treat us
like slaves in our homeland.
ELI: This is not
your homeland, it is ours.
AHMAD:
How is it your homeland,
when there were already
people there when you arrived?
Speaker 3:
We were pushed out first.
AHMAD: Then you should
understand what it feels like.
ELI: We only took back
what was rightfully ours.
AHMAD: Yeah, tell that to the millions
of refugees you displaced.
What gives you the right
to that homeland?
Superior military?
DAPHNA:
What gives you the right?
You turned my children
into orphans.
We did nothing to you.
AHMAD: Nothing?
You have no idea
what it's like to be persecuted,
to have no hope
for a future.
ELI: My grandparents
died in the Holocaust.
How dare you talk to me
about persecution?
AHMAD: I had nothing
to do with the Holocaust.
I wasn't even born,
and neither were you.
I'm talking about today.
DAPHNA: And today,
we were sitting there,
minding our own business,
and you murdered us.
AHMAD:
Minding your own business?
You elect your leaders.
You put them in power.
ELI: What does that
have to do with anything?
AHMAD: You sent tank shells
into my neighborhood.
DAPHNA:
That was not us.
AHMAD: My two daughters
were at home, studying for school.
Amira was six.
AHMAD:
Kayla was seven.
AHMAD: I had to pick...
pieces of their bodies
and put them in garbage bags.
AHMAD: Two days later,
I found my wife in a bathtub
soaking in her own blood.
AHMAD: So you tell me exactly
what did I do to deserve this?
ELI: You and your terrorists
have been murdering people for decades.
AHMAD: So has your government.
Speaker 3:
We are not our government.
But now I see
our government was right.
AHMAD: Oh you see?
You think Palestinians deserve this?
ELI: Israelis don't
strap bombs to their bodies
and go blow up innocent people.
AHMAD: You do it from
a distance just like cowards.
ELI: You are a barbarian.
We had nothing to do--
AHMAD: You are just
as guilty as your leaders.
ELI: Why is he still here?
If there is a hell,
-he should go straight there.
-DAPHNA: Harry.
CLERK: Fortunately,
we don't leave that up to you.
ELI: He left
our children without parents.
What type of heaven is this?
For servants of Allah,
not Zionist oppressors and killers.
-You are the killer.
-AHMAD: Israeli's the killer.
DAPHNA: Stop it!
Stop it, stop it, stop it!
Stop it, just stop, stop it.
Speaker 3:
Stop what? He killed us.
DAPHNA: Stop fighting.
-ELI: We lost our lives.
-DAPHNA: Yes, yes.
But we can't go back.
Haven't you been listening?
Speaker 3:
We were innocent victims.
DAPHNA: Yes, we were.
But so was he.
He did not deserve
what happened to him.
To see his daughters like that.
Ellie, he was trying
to live his life, just like us.
ELI: But he killed us.
DAPHNA: Yes, yes,
and so it is with us.
DAPHNA: The fighting,
the hatred, it can stop.
DAPHNA: I'm sad.
And I'm angry, and I hurt.
And I don't understand
why you did it.
DAPHNA: [INHALES] But I understand
the pain of losing your children.
-DAPHNA: I forgive you.
-ELI: What?
DAPHNA: I'm sorry.
DAPHNA:
For what our government's done.
And for the suffering
we've caused to a new family.
DAPHNA: For that...
-[SNIFFLES]
-I must ask you forgiveness.
[SIGHS]
AHMAD: Yes.
Speaker 3:
How dare you!
He left our children
without parents.
Have you lost your mind?
DAPHNA: No.
DAPHNA: I've regained it.
-[CLOCK CHIMES]
CLERK: Time's up.
CLERK: One at a time please.
ELI: Who goes first?
CLERK:
That's also up to you.
ELI: Go to heaven.
I will see you shortly.
Go on.
DAPHNA: Forgive him.
Speaker 3:
We've lived a good life.
I don't need to forgive him
to get into heaven.
DAPHNA: Without forgiveness,
there can be no heaven.
ELI: Go on.
I will see you shortly.
ELI: Go on.
CLERK:
Please stop at the line.
[DOOR OPENS]
CLERK: Next.
[SOUND]
CLERK:
Please stop at the line.
[SOUND]
CLERK: You might want
to try listening to your wife.
You can't want hell for other people
without being in hell yourself.
CLERK: Next.
CLERK: Please stop at the line.
AHMAD: I get to go to heaven,
after how I hurt her?
I've been so full of hatred.
CLERK: The one's
who find it hardest to love,
need love the most.
AHMAD: Who goes in there?
CLERK: No one.
It's just a prop.
Hell is the world's nightmare.
It's not reality.
And everlasting peace
doesn't come from falling asleep.
It comes from waking up.
CLERK:
You were created from love,
for the sole purpose of love.
Murder is a contradiction, whether it's
done by governments or individuals because...
it goes against what you truly are.
Love neither attacks, nor condemns.
And when you can forgive those
who attack and condemn you,
that's when you know it's really love.
AHMAD:
[SIGHS] Thank you.
CLERK: Thank God.
And you're welcome.
-[CLERK SIGHS]
-[DOOR CLOSES]
CLERK: Welcome.
[DOOR CLOSES]
CLERK:
Please, have a seat.
[SIGHS]
[DOOR OPENS]
CLERK: Welcome.
[DOOR CLOSES]
♪♪