Bikur Ha-Tizmoret

I've mentioned several times how I've got quite the backlog of foreign films to get through on my DVR before they expire, and frankly, I don't think I'm going to get through all of them. But with that in mind, I figured it's time I at least try to watch some of them. Up next is a film from a country whose movies I rarely frequent: the Israeli film The Band's Visit.

The movie was released in 2007 although it's supposedly set about a decade earlier; in any case I didn't notice any obvious signs that would point to precisely when it was set. The band in question is the Alexandria Police Orchestra, whom as you might have figured out from the name are actually Egyptian, from the large port city. They've been invited to appear at the opening of a new Arab Israeli cultural center in the city of Petah Tikva (remember, even disregarding the Palestinian areas Israel gained control of in the Six Days' War, Israel has a population of something like 15% non-Jewish Arabs). As the movie opens, the Egyptians have landed at Ben Gurion Airport, only to find that nobody has come to pick them up. With that in mind, they go to the bus terminal to inquire about a bus to where they're going.

Unfortunately, they not speaking Hebrew -- apparently modern Egyptian Arabic has trouble with the voiced P sound -- the destination they ask about gets them sent to a place called Bet Hatikva, which is well into the Negev desert in the south of the country, completely in the opposite direction from Petah Tikva. The band is unceremoniously dropped off in the middle of nowhere and make their way to a small cafe which is one of the only signs of human activity. There, shop owner Dina tells the orchestra's head Tawfiq that they've come to the wrong town. Worse, there are no more buses leaving tonight: when Tawfiq makes a comment about the cultural center, Dina says that Bet Hatikva has no culture.

Eventually, Dina comes up with a plan, which is to find several of her acquaintances and put the musicians up by ones and twos, since the orchestra only has eight members. It's an awkward and sudden imposition, considering that while Dina lives alone, everyone else has a life. One person's family is holding a birthday party; another guy was about to go on a blind date; and the like. But it's only for one night, and thankfully most of the people speak something close enough to English that they can all communicate with one another. Little things happen to everybody until the band is put on the right bus the next morning and are able to play at the cultural center that afternoon.

The Band's Visit is one of those little movies where not much happens. As such, it's a movie that's not going to be for everybody. Even with a modest running time just under 90 minutes, it can still feel slow. But it's the sort of movie you should stick with, because it really does work in the end, as you come to learn about all these characters' lives and how they feel like real people, warts and all, with lives that, like real life, are often boring with little going on.