Cinematic checkpoints and sovereign time

Abstract

This article articulates a concept of sovereign time and aims to demonstrate how the checkpoint generates this time. After briefly discussing how the checkpoint system in the West Bank radically alters the tempos of daily life, It then works through the understanding of messianic time developed by Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben in order to distinguish sovereign time as a unique concept. It argues that the temporalities of the checkpoint correspond to the spatial configurations of these sites, labeling these compound spatio-temporal relationships as chronotopes. The second half of the article examines how the checkpoint functions as a film set where a theological understanding of sovereignty is performed and filmed, and also explores how critical cinema exposes the checkpoint as a location that brings different kinds of chronotopes to crisis. It analyzes scenes at the checkpoint in Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966), Tawfiq Saleh’s The Dupes (1972), Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention (2002) and Yoav Shamir’s Checkpoint (2004) in order to show how these films interrupt the sovereign time of the checkpoint and make it audible and visible.