There’s a scene in Elephant, Gus Van Sant’s 2003 film about two young, male, Columbine High School-style terrorists, that’s not only jarring but obnoxious and irresponsible. One of the youths is shown under a bathroom shower. Unexpectedly, he’s joined by the other boy and then, standing under the showerhead, they kiss. Nothing in the film has prepared us for this scene, and nothing that follows, as the two embark on their murderous and suicidal mission at their high school, explains it.

When Bill looks in the mirror, he doesn’t much care for what he sees: waxy skin, a gut that shows his addiction to candy bars, and a haircut that could only be improved were he to run a lawnmower through it (or maybe he already did).

The Palestinian Gaza Strip has scarcely been out of the news over the last several years, especially since the radical organization Hamas ousted the Fatah-dominated Palestinian government from this territory last summer.