THE BAND'S VISIT (M)

FESTIVAL DE CANNES
Offical Selection
Un Certain Regard

Director:
Eran Kolirin

Starring:
Saleh Bakri
Khalifa Natour
Ronit Elkabetz
Rubi Moscovich
Imad Jabarin

Plot Summary:
A small Egyptian Police band arrives in Israel. They are suppose to play at an initiation ceremony but instead are left stranded at the airport. The band tries to make their way on their own, only to find themselves in a desolate, small Israeli town, somewhere in the heart of the desert. A lost band in a lost town.

Genre:
Drama

Duration:
1 Hour 26 Minutes

Origin:
Israel

David Stratton, At the Movies
RAVE REVIEW!

The eight members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Band, led by Toofik, Sasson Gabai, arrive at an airport in Israel and find no-one is there to meet them. They are here to play at the Arab Culture Centre in a provincial town, but the town they arrive at, by bus, is the wrong one – a dot in the desert where culture of any kind is non-existent. However there IS Dina, Ronit Elkabetz, who runs a local café….

Dina invites Toofik and Khaled, Saleh Bakri, who is a bit of a ladies’ man, to stay at her place; the others find friendly locals who accommodate them….

This first feature by writer-director Eran Kolirin is at first sight a deceptively simple comedy about fish out of water, but in the end it proves to be much more than that. This Israeli film, co-produced with French and independent American companies, is a strong plea for friendship and tolerance between Israelis and Arabs, so that underlying the comedy, which is extremely charming and often really funny, is a powerful and important message. As the nervous, lost Egyptians tentatively get to know their Israeli hosts they find they have a surprising number of things in common, not least a love of music – a scene in which the visitors and their hosts sing Gershwin’s immortal “Summertime” is a gem. The performances are impeccable: Ronit Elkabetz, a very well known actor in Israel, is totally charming as the wise, seen-it-all Dina, while Sasson Gabai’s rather bemused and somewhat embarrassed Toofik is the perfect foil. Kolirin and his excellent cameraman, Shai Goldman, compose images which are not only beautiful but witty in themselves, which add a great deal to one’s enjoyment. Sadly, I understand this film has not been seen in Egypt; hopefully that will come about in the future. Meanwhile this warm-hearted plea for tolerance is not only top entertainment, it’s a very fine movie.

SCORE
David Stratton – 4 ½ stars
Margaret Pomeranz – 4 stars

USA Critics Reviews:
Empire
A heartfelt, wry and decidedly spry film.

San Francisco Chronicle
A lovely, smart and beautifully understated film.

Chicago Sun-Times
The Band’s Visit has not provided any of the narrative payoffs we might have expected, but has provided something more valuable: An interlude involving two “enemies,” Arabs and Israelis, that shows them both as only ordinary people with ordinary hopes, lives and disappointments. It has also shown us two souls with rare beauty.

Baltimore Sun
This movie has a tone, look and mood all its own - it's a joyously bittersweet piece of visual music about isolation, melancholy and everyone's yearning for transcendence, through love, art or both.

Entertainment Weekly
Something marvellous happens as the filmmaker, in his first feature, expertly metes out small scenes of communication between people taught, for generations, to be wary of one another: This Band swings with the rhythms of hope.

Boston Globe
It's a small, profoundly satisfying movie that keeps echoing long after it's over.

New York Post
A modest and charming comedy from Israel.

TV Guide
A remote, Israeli desert town is the setting for this droll, endearing comedy about an accidental cultural exchange that very quietly says some very important things about contemporary Arab-Israeli relations.

Trailer: