The Band’s Visit (sony pictures)
Dir. Eran Kolirin
That The Band’s Visit didn’t make the cut for Israel’s nomination in the Foreign Language category in this year’s Academy Awards was something of a scandal — the movie had too much English (though it was one of three languages spoken). Unfortunately for members of the Academy, they missed out on a lovely film that, beneath the surface, focused on the many different ways people deal with loneliness.
Tewfiq (Sasson Gabai), the Egyptian leader of the Alexandria Police Union’s Orchestra, arrives at Ben Gurion airport with his ragtag band of musicians to play at the opening ceremony for an Arab cultural center, only to be forgotten at the airport. When ladies’ man Haled, played wonderfully by Saleh Bakri, spends more time flirting with the clerk at the bus station than finding the right bus, he gets the orchestra stuck in Beit HaTikvah, a desolate town miles from nowhere — and their destination, Petach Tikvah. As they wander into town, Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), the divorced caf