The Band's Visit

The Alexandria Police Orchestra is invited to Israel to play at the opening of an Arab cultural centre. Nobody meets them at the airport. They take a bus on their own and go to the wrong place: a small settlement in the middle of the desert whose name resembles the town they wanted. There is no other bus that day and no hotel. Dina, who runs the café, finds them places to sleep. The night passes. Eran Kolirin writes and directs. Sasson Gabai plays Tewfiq, the conductor, and Ronit Elkabetz plays Dina. The language is English; the Egyptians and the Israelis do not speak each other's languages and communicate in a broken second one. That builds the distance at the centre of the narrative directly. The narrative does not talk politics. The question between Arabs and Israelis is nowhere argued; instead the film describes two groups of people noticing each other over one night. The visual style is fixed and symmetrical; the frames are deliberately empty and the comedy comes out of that stillness. It won an award in Un Certain Regard at the 2007 Cannes film festival and took many international prizes. It was to be Israel's Oscar submission but was rejected by the Academy because most of the dialogue is in English. The musical adapted from it won a number of Tony awards on Broadway in 2018, including best musical. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet comedy and films built on an encounter. Who it is not for: almost nothing happens, the pace is very slow, and the film offers no resolution.