Monday, April 14, 2008

The Band's Visit


The synopsis on the movie's website reads,
Once, not long ago, a small Egyptian Police band arrived in Israel. They came to play at an initiation ceremony but, due to bureaucracy, bad luck, or for whatever reason, they were left stranded at the airport. They tried to manage on their own, only to find themselves in a desolate, almost forgotten, small Israeli town, somewhere in the heart of the desert. A lost band in a lost town. Not many people remember this. It wasn't that important.

This was the movie that was disqualified for an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film because too much of its dialogue was in English. This is because English was the only common language between the Israelis and the Egyptians in the film. All of the dialogue amongst the Israelis and amongst the Egyptians occurred in their respective languages but since the movie is about how they interacted, there was also a lot of English. Heavily accented English, but English nonetheless.

It's a shame since this was quite an enjoyable movie. Very quiet and character driven with no climax, just a denouement. It was affecting to watch how their brief exposures to each other changed the main characters.

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