Shalom!

So as you fans may know from our facebook page, I have hightailed it to Israel this past week. While I’ve been checking out the sights and floating in the Dead Sea, I have of course gone out to see what new and wonderful films that Israel has to offer. I was fortunate enough to be able to see the movie Ajami at the Sherover Theater in Jerusalem. This film was the first undertaking of two young Israeli directors Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani. It has won numerous awards both in Israel (Ajami won five awards at the Israel’s Ophir Awards) and abroad. It is currently a nominee for Best Foreign Film at this year’s Academy Awards.

The movie weaves together five stories about Christian and Muslim Arabs living in the Tel-Aviv community of Ajami. The movie is actually rather brilliant. The directors’ style of cinematography is raw and gritty, which in itself is not groundbreaking, but they couple the rawness of the filming with the unpolished but emotionally honest work of their actors (all of whom are non-professional). The combination is a movie which is fresh, moving without being overemotional, and interesting. It shows a side of Israeli life which is a far cry from the preferred national image; one of violence, drugs and daily tensions, resulting from years political stress on the country.

Despite the dark underside that the movie depicts the directors were careful not to assign blame to one specific group: “It’s not about who is bad and who is good, who is guilty and who is a victim, it’s about human beings who have to live in this reality. Everybody sees this reality in a different way,” says Shani.

I admit this movie was very hard to follow for me, only because I do not speak Arabic or Hebrew. There were also no English subtitles. Fortunately the acting is clear enough and the plot is well-developed despite the many time jumps the movie does. The cohesion of the film is amazing considering that Shani and Copti did not even write out a script for the majority of the movie. In most scenes the actors were given a situation and told to react.

The only problem I had with the film was its lack of editing. At two hours long there are parts that definitely began to drag a bit, but the problems of the movie are definitely overshadowed by the overall product. This is a must see movie for all cinema fans. One that indicates, with an added bonus of the pairing of an Arab-Jewish directing team, that harmonious and beautiful things are being exported from Israel.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.