THE BAND'S VISIT aka BIKUR HA -TIZMORET (HEBREW/ARABIC/ENGLISH) (2007)

The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, an Egyptian police orchestra consisting of eight artists, land in Israel to perform at a local Arab Cultural Centre. However, when they land at the Israeli airport in their immaculate blue uniforms, they are befuddled to find that there is no welcoming party/vehicle to receive them in this alien land. The leader of the band is a sullen and taciturn Tewfiq (an excellent Sasson Gabai). Thanks to a mispronunciation, the band lands in a wrong place and is trapped in an isolated small town in the middle of a desert without any further conveyance or communication. As there are no hotels to spend the night, the band is forced to accept the shelter provided by Dina (a radiant Ronit Elkabetz), the owner of a local restaurant and couple of her customers in their respective homes. Tewfiq and the Haled (Saleh Bakri) end up at the home of Dina while the others are provided shelter by her customers. What follows is an interesting study of characters of these unlikely hosts and their reticent guests as they interact ever so reluctantly over the course of the night.

The core of the movie revolves around its three principal protagonists viz. - Sasson Gabai,  Ronit Elkabetz and Saleh Bakri as Tewfiq, Dina and Haled respectively and how they handle their unusual situations over the night. Sasson Gabai owns the character of Tewfiq in its all clammed up exterior, circumspect communication and his constant attempts to manoeuvre through the ambiguity of his awkward situation. Ronit Elkabetz shines through as the assertive and confident Dina who uncovers Tewfiq's rocky exterior with her simmering warmth to find a warm, yet lonely individual weighed down by his pensive past. Saleh Bakri is fluid in his portrayal of Haled as somewhat brash and rebellious member of the band. 

Eran Kolirin, the debutante director, deftly navigates through the narrative of this long night when these hitherto unacquainted persons from alien lands have to interact and traverse. But, are they just strangers from two nations which share a mutual hostility ? In the course of their interactions, both verbal and otherwise, over the night, the movie conveys the elemental human craving for communication and reaching out to other souls, which recognise no man-made barriers. 

Eran Kolirin seems to have a gift of framing his visuals which could communicate and presents the loneliness that permeates the town or the predicament of the characters to the viewer without even a single dialogue. Check out the scene at a local skating rink where Haled helps his young host in connecting to his date or the scene at Dina's home after she returns from a dinner with Tewfiq at a restaurant or the sequence concerning an artist and his unfinished piece of music or even the sequence at the local pay phone where a young man awaits the call from his lover even as a member of the band is trying to make a call.

The Band's Visit is an unusual and rather, intriguing slice-of-life drama that strikes a chord. In the garb of a gentle bittersweet comedy, it presents a subtle, yet profound exploration of the very human emotions of loneliness, melancholy, friendship, love, loss and hope which are commonplace and connect people irrespective of the fact that they may consider one another as alien or even enemies.

The movie won the award under the category of Un Certain Regard (Jury Coup de Coeur) at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 and has adorned several other film festivals where it was highly appreciated. However, it was rejected as the official nominee from Israel at the Academy Awards under the category of Best Foreign Language movie as more than half of of the dialogues are in English.

A VERY GOOD WATCH !!

P.S. -  You can watch this movie on UTV WORLD MOVIES channel which airs it quite regularly.