the band's visit (2007)

+ + + + + + +

Strangers in a Land That’s Not So Strange
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: December 7, 2007

Stranded in the Israeli desert, the eight Egyptian members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra look a bit like a joke in search of a punch line. If “The Band’s Visit” were any other kind of film — a little more pat, say, and rather less knowing — these eight souls might quickly transform into mere props in a small-scale sermon about Middle East man’s humanity to Middle East man, minus the politics of course.

“The Band’s Visit,” the first feature by the Israeli writer and director Eran Kolirin, flirts recklessly with obviousness, cuteness too. This sweet-and-sour comedy opens with the band, which has traveled to Israel to perform at an Arab cultural center, arriving at an airport without a welcoming committee. Dressed in nearly identical uniforms and smart caps, their nut-brown skin working a vivid, chromatic contrast with the robin’s-egg blue of their costumes, the men enter the film in silence, immobilized by professional reserve or perhaps just bewilderment. For the orchestra’s unsmiling leader, Tewfiq — the magnificently sober Sasson Gabai — the initial lack of a welcome will prove to be only the first bump on an increasingly rough and rutted road.

A few phone calls and one bus ride later, the band has arrived in an Israeli town, the wrong Israeli town, having successfully journeyed from forgotten to mislaid. There, amid the dust and the wind, the Egyptians meet a handful of curious (and agonizingly bored) Israelis who, with degrees of easy and grudging hospitality, offer them shelter, food, distraction, engagement, a few nips of booze, some shaky turns around a roller-skating rink and curious, fleeting companionship. Amid the awkward conversations (spoken in lightly halting and fluid English), the even more uncomfortable silences, bits of music and some nicely executed physical comedy, the Egyptians and the Israelis circle one another warily. Love doesn’t exactly bloom in this desert, but a sense of unarticulated longing does.

There’s something gently comical about the contrast between the Egyptians’ gravely masculine faces and the prettiness of those blue costumes, especially when they’re lined up like French schoolgirls (or ducklings). Mr. Kolirin wrings even more visual humor from this contrast by placing the men in the center of the image and ensuring that they don’t move for several beats, which locates them in spatial and existential isolation. It’s a facile, familiar movie trick, and Mr. Kolirin comes close to wearing it out before the band even leaves the airport, largely because massing the men in this fashion threatens to diminish their individuality. But it’s a clever stratagem too, because the comedy eases you into the story and obscures the currents of seriousness swirling under the film’s surface.

Mr. Kolirin, it emerges, is wrenching comedy out of intense melancholia. Much of that melancholy involves Tewfiq; the band’s roguish violinist, Haled (Saleh Bakri, smooth as glass); and an Israeli restaurant owner, Dina (the great Ronit Elkabetz), a brusque, untamed beauty who offers the two shelter. (The other band members bed down elsewhere.) Over the course of a long, peripatetic evening, these three will unite and separate, fumble and parry. Finally they will reunite in Dina’s apartment, where, as they sit wearily around a table, Mr. Kolirin will cut from one face to the next in tight close-up. Despite their tentative, sometimes tender exchanges, the three remain essentially alone, an isolation underscored by the shallow depth of field that leaves only their faces in poignant focus.

The terminal loneliness that haunts this scene may be universal, but Mr. Kolirin also seems to be saying that a specific loneliness haunts Israel as well. At one point Dina blurts out to Tewfiq that she and her family used to love watching Egyptian movies on television. The streets of Israel, she says, her voice swelling, were empty because everyone else was watching too. But that was then, and now Dina and the rest of these Israeli townspeople sit in this seemingly barren land with its pregnant silences and wait. Surrounded by desert, a few longingly invoke the sea, summoning a desire, but for what? Mr. Kolirin, I think, suggests that this longing is for something the poet Marcia Falk calls the “Eternal wellspring of peace.”

“The Band’s Visit” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Some adult language.

THE BAND’S VISIT

Opens today in New York and Los Angeles.

+

The quality and quantity of Israeli movie exports have increased significantly in recent years. Most of those features, while well-made, tend to be serious - not surprising considering the volatile situation those living there find themselves in. For that reason, The Band's Visit, the directorial debut of Erin Kolirin, is a welcome surprise. A drama about isolation and communication, The Band's Visit is characterized both by strongly delineated characters and low-key comedy. The movie is not lightweight but it is at times lighthearted.

The film opens with the semi-comedic sight of a group of eight men wearing impeccably tailored sky blue uniforms standing at a bus stop. They are the Alexandria Police Ceremonial Orchestra and they have arrived in Israel after being invited there to play at the opening of the Arab Cultural Center in Pet Hatikvah. Unfortunately, no one has met them and, one wrong bus ride later, they find themselves trapped in the small town of Bet Hatikvah, in the middle of nowhere. There, it doesn't matter that they are Egyptians. The residents are so excited to have something - anything - to break the monotony that they're willing to overlook any cultural divisions.

The story quickly divides into three pieces. The leader of the band, the buttoned-up Tawfiq Zacharaya (Sasson Gabai) spends an evening out with Dina (Ronit Eklabetz), the owner of the town's only restaurant. Despite apparently different personalities, these two find solace in each other's company and discover that the gulf between them may not be that wide after all. A few other members of the band "invade" a local house where the husband invites them without his wife's permission. In addition to escalating tensions in the marriage, it leads to an absurd sing-along. Finally, Khaled (Selah Bakri), the band's rebellious newest member, helps teach a socially awkward Israeli how to woo a girl.

The Band's Visit is about communication and how important it is in facilitating understanding. Sometimes, nonverbal signals make speech unnecessary but, most of the time, the way people grow to know and respect others, is through talk - both small and large. The Egyptians speak Arab and the Israelis speak Hebrew so in order to interact, both sides must use the "compromise" language of English. There are two side-bars to this that go beyond the story. Although The Band's Visit is primarily in English, it is subtitled. Presumably, this is because the filmmakers were concerned that thick accents might impede understanding (although I found the English-subtitled-English to be a distraction). Secondly, the movie - despite being an Israeli production filmed in Israel - was disqualified from contention for the Best Foreign Language Film because of its high percentage of English. As a result of this, two of the past year's most acclaimed foreign films - The Band's Visit and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days - were not mentioned at the Oscar ceremony.

The most moving story, and the one to receive the most screen time, is the semi-romance between Tawfiq and Dina. There's a load of sexual chemistry between these two, but it's forcefully repressed by Tawfiq, who is the kind of man who feel uncomfortable expressing emotions. Nevertheless, he opens up to Dina about painful past secrets and reveals more of himself than he has likely done with anyone else. She is obviously interested in a sexual liaison but does not push the attraction. The actors playing these parts, Sasson Gabai and Ronit Eklabetz, are seasoned veterans with some international exposure. This kind of expert work is deserving of the praise it has received across the globe (especially at film festivals).

In keeping with the "fish out of water" aspect of the movie, Kolirin maintains a predominantly light tone and offers plenty of humorous moments. There are, for example, interludes at a roller disco that are designed to tickle the funny bone. In the end, The Band's Visit is about members of two cultures trying to bridge gaps in circumstances where all too often, spans are being brought down and chasms widened. It's the people, not the politics, that exist at the movie's focal point.

+

The Band's Visit starts out simple and straightforward but eventually grows into something beautifully poetic. Watching it, I thought about how so many movies attempt to weave us through plots that are unnecessarily complicated, but here is a short Israeli film that succeeds by simply being about universal human emotions. It's elegiac and bittersweet, teaching us that sometimes it's the passersby we meet who allow us to reflect on who we are.

The film opens when eight members of an Egyptian police band arrive in Israel. They've come to play at the opening ceremony of an Arab Cultural Center in a city called Pet Hatikva. By accident, they take a bus to [B]et Hatikva and wind up, as the locals would say, "in the middle of nowhere." The leader of the group is a lieutenant colonel named Tawfiq (Sasson Gabai), who humbly asks a local restaurant manager named Dina (Ronit Elkabetz) if she'd be so kind as to feed his men and put them up for the night.

Since the band's arrival seems to be the most exciting thing ever to happen in Bet Hatikva, Dina willfully agrees. Perhaps she's even excited, as she offers her apartment to Tawfiq and the band's youngest member, a desiring fellow named Khaled (Saleh Bakri), who charms women by singing to them and asking if they like Chet Baker. The other six members are divvied up among the other locals.

The Band's Visit generates most of its laughs in the way it finds humor in awkward social situations. Some of the funniest scenes take place during the clarinet player's stay with an out-of-work Israeli man and his family. It's the man's wife's birthday, who shoots her husband dirty looks because she never planned on spending the evening with strangers, let alone a clarinet player who muses, and eventually performs, his unfinished concerto.

Dina and Tawfiq decide to go out together, which, in this town, pretty much means just going to a different restaurant. They discuss things like marriage, children and wrong choices. One of the film's finest points is how we're able to pour our hearts out to those we know we'll never see again, which is why Dina and Tawfiq are willing to let their emotional guards down. We're sometimes comfortable with strangers because if we know we're never going to seem them again, what we say won't later be used against us. We feel protected somehow.

Khaled also has a night out when joins Dina's friend, Papi (Shlomi Avraham), on a double date to the local roller skating rink. Khaled gives the young man pointers and teaches him how to comfort his date, which sets up the film's funniest and most inspired scene.

When I called the film "simple," I meant it in the sense that not many events happen. There's very little action in it. But simple-minded it is not. Writer-director Eran Kolirin mixes in some deeply profound themes on loneliness, loyalty, compassion and regret, all with a gazing sense of humor that's able to connect us to the Arabs and Israelis. The film validates humor as a universal human response.

The Band's Visit put me into a state of reflection, and I could see why it won several Israeli Academy Awards. I think about this film and I smile because it makes me feel connected to other human beings. It knows all humans are alike somehow, that when we're lost, it is possible to count on strangers, even learn from them. I'm sure Kolirin was just being ironic by opening the film with the words, "Once - not long ago - a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel. Not many remember this...It wasn't that important." On the contrary, for the characters, and for us, it was very important.