(Written and directed by Eran Kolirin)
Review by Laura Hawbaker
“Why do police need to play [the music of] Um Kalthoum?”
Tewfig (a.k.a. “The General”), stoic in his crisp light blue uniform, replies, “This is like asking why a man needs a soul.”
It is a quiet, poignant moment that in very few words says a great deal. Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit is satiated with moments such as these. Tewfig (Sasson Gabai) is the leader of the Alexandria Police Ceremonial Orchestra: eight Egyptian police officers who play traditional Arab compositions and spend a great deal of the movie comically dragging their luggage and instruments down isolated roads in the desert. No one thought to pick up these visiting dignitaries from the airport, and they are utterly lost and out of place in Israel. They find themselves marooned for one night in Bet Hatikvah, a concrete village in the middle of nowhere, a place where “there is no Arab culture, no Israeli culture, no culture at all.” The film explores the happenings of that day, as the Arab police officers interact with their Israeli hosts.
“We are here representing Egypt,” Tewfig tells his officers before they bunk for the night. “I expect you all to conduct yourselves with dignity.” Yet it is this continuous pursuit of dignity that delivers some of the film’s most comedic moments. All eight officers line up in a row when a tourist asks to take their picture. Tewfig reminds his men to stand straight, tells one to fix his buttons, and just as the picture is snapped… a lumbering janitor ambles on screen with his mop bucket, ruining the shot.
Nevertheless, dignified… they must remain.
This becomes especially difficult when Tewfig is finagled into a date with a local snack bar owner, the fiery Dina (Ronit Elkabetz). Tewfig is perpetually austere and proper, while the smoky-voiced Dina is anything but (she hauls out the largest watermelon ever put on screen, stabs it with a butcher knife, and tears the thing apart… very impressive). Despite all this, the two share a stirring connection, a romantic night that, like the quiet blaze of a single firefly, must come to an end too soon.
Here and there are hints of the conflict between Israel and the rest of the Middle East (one of the Egyptian officers covers a framed photo of a tank while eating lunch), but war is not what this movie is about. Eran Kolirin has crafted a gentle comedy that is a bittersweet ode to human relationships. His witty use of the camera and earnest direction find humor in the simplest of actions and heartache in the smallest of words. It’s no wonder this film swept the Israel Academy Awards and scored a 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It IS that good.
There is nothing to criticize except, perhaps, the largely unnecessary subtitles; the majority of the time these characters speak perfectly lucid English. The police natively speak Arab, Dina and the townspeople speak Hebrew… so English is their only shared tongue. As a matter of fact, The Band’s Visit addresses the barriers of language with poetic beauty as well.
“Say something in Arab,” Dina asks Tewfig.
“Why?”
She dreamily sighs, “To hear the music.”
