FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

Rebecca is an American who’s all set to marry an Israeli man. They travel together to Jerusalem where thereafter they break up. Desperate to escape, yet not waste the traveling and cultural experience, she accompanies cab driver Hanna to the Free Zone in Jordan. Hanna’s attempting to claim payment for work her husband did. Instead of cash, she finds Leila who states that the money and the man who owes it are nowhere to be found. All three, an Israeli, a Palestinian, and an American head out together in hopes of resolution. Good luck.

I was bored from the first shot. For about nine minutes or so we are treated to a profile shot of a crying Natalie Portman (Rebecca) inside a car while we listen to the Israeli version of the farmer and the dell which repeatedly asks the question how much longer will the killing and aggression last. The shot lasts so long it appears as if Portman runs out of ideas for reaction shots and expressions. At least American audiences can read the subtitles. Without those, the excruciating (for the wrong reasons) shot would be even more ridiculous and boring.

It didn’t get much better after that. It’s just too unnecessarily artsy. I don’t want to call it pretentious, because it would work well if the opening shot and the long sequence of superimpositions were handled by a better filmmaker than Amos Gitai. The ten or fifteen minutes of superimpositions was meant to physically show both that progress was being made on the road and to lay down some of the backstory that lead Rebecca to this point. If it were used a little more sparingly, it would have shown us a ghost of a relationship that she is obviously and understandably haunting her journey. Instead it turns out to be imposing and overbearing; disconcerting and confusing. We get to the point where we only want to follow one image and we lose track of the narrative. I didn’t come out of that sequence understanding what had happened between the two fiancés. It does produce my favorite shot of the film, which is simply a tight close-up of Rebecca laying on her arm and looking out the window. Otherwise the first half hour is pretty much junk.

Actually the whole thing pretty much is. There are a couple of decent shots, and the acting is pretty good, especially by Hana Laszlo (Hanna). And for a long time, it seemed like the film wasn’t going to carry any type of political message, which would be a surprising move and possibly a welcome one. However as the film progresses, it takes on more of a stance (Hanna and her husband used to sell flowers, now they sell armored vehicles) as the characters…well, I would say “define” themselves, but I think a better way to put it is that they regress into stereotypes. The ending is especially disappointing in that it completely negates everything the rest of the movie had tried to build up. Even in the scene directly preceding the final, horribly destructive shot, the three strong women characters were rocking out in the car together! Then it all magically falls apart at the drop of a hat. Pathetic.

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