Weekly meditations from your humble messenger
And
the Band Played On
(The Band's Visit, 3/31/08)
By Nicholas Nicastro
I
defy anybody not to be charmed by Eran Kolirin's small, quiet comedy,
The Band's Visit.
Unreasonably high expectations of
the film are immediately relieved by its first words: "Once—not
long ago—a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel. Not many
remember this. It wasn't that important." Writer-director Kolirin
has his tongue planted firmly in cheek, of course: in the Middle East,
major consequences always seem to follow events that shouldn't be that
important (e.g. who visits this holy site here, who digs a tunnel for
tourists there, etc.). Beyond that initial bit of coyness, The Band's
Visit finds plenty of relieving humor in a setting that is, frankly,
one of the most not-funny in the world.
The band in question is an uniformed
octet from the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra. Incongruously
starched and spit-shined, they wander around Ben Gurion Airport for
a while, then board the wrong bus. They end up not at their proper destination,
but a charmless Israeli settlement somewhere in the middle of the desert.
There they bring some relief to the bored locals, including a sardonic
(and smolderingly lovely) restaurant-owner Dina (Ronit Elkabetz). After
staying the night, they get rescued by a car from the Egyptian embassy,
and go on their way. For plot, that's pretty much it.
Kolirin's real preoccupation is
with his characters. The Egyptians and Israelis start off united in
their mutual incomprehension for each other—until the cracks within
each group are inevitably revealed. The band's leader Tawfiq (Sasson
Gabai) is a stiff-necked widower with the heart of a poet; the group's
black sheep (Saleh Bakri) begins as Don Juan, but resorts with grace
to playing Cyrano for a gynophobic Israeli teenager (Shlomi Avraham).
Dina, deadened to life by a place where nothing is forbidden but nothing
ever happens, is first amused, then moved by Tawfiq's chaste formality.
In short, where most American comedies
thrive on fulfilling stereotypes, The Band's Visit is predicated
on breaking them. True, this kind of humanistic message ("Why can't
we all just get along?") could easily devolve into cheap sentiment.
Kolirin dispels this threat by balancing the humor with an air of searching
melancholy. In their division from each other, both sides seem to be
missing something—the Arabs envy the unabashed physicality of the
Israelis, and the Israelis the kind of romantic soulfulness of their
guests.
At the very least, the film's presentation
of Israel/Palestine as a place where a few sane people live should have
earned it more exposure here. Ironically, Israel was barred from entering
The Band's Visit as its official entry for the Best Foreign film
Oscar because (get this) too much English is spoken in it. This was
despite the fact that it makes perfect sense for the film's native Arabic
and Hebrew-speakers to resort to English, as their only language in
common. If there's anyplace more absurd than the Middle East, Hollywood
must be it.
* * *
I
haven't seen enough of HBO's ongoing mini-series John Adams to
judge its overall merits. Its seamless visualization of David McCullough's
best-selling biography comes as no surprise—the growing number
of HD sets in the nation demands nothing less. Nor can the casting of
Paul (Crumb, Sideways) Giamatti as the irascible founding father,
or Laura Linney as the trusty Abigail, be faulted. As a history lesson,
it sure beats the primitive film-strips of my generation.
What is notable about the series
is the timing of its arrival, in the middle of an increasingly bitter
Democratic presidential primary campaign. The McCullough book came as
a revelation of the previously unsung importance of Adams, a man of
great talent and few obvious charms. Adams was a political animal but
no schmoozer. He was only a passable orator, owing most of his success
to wonkish, dogged perseverance. He was a key figure in the birth of
our nation despite the fact that, as Giamatti says in the show, "I
am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular." He also owed much to the
advice of his level-headed spouse.
He achieved all this—member
of the original Continental Congress, ambassador to France, second President
of the United States—despite competition from a number of equally
talented, often better-spoken, far more impressive competitors, such
as Jefferson and Hamilton. All of which should remind us that the important
work of government shouldn't always be entrusted to the most likable
figures.
©2008 Nicholas Nicastro
back to Culture Blog