filmland / By Jay Aubrey-Herzog

Band’s Visit: A Small Gem

Plus: Bruges buffoonery, Boleyn boredom

(March 27, 2008) Opening

21.Group of brilliant students and unorthodox math prof take on big casinos and win their way into racy Vegas lifestyles. Rated PG-13. At Mill Creek and the Broadway.

The Band’s Visit

GALLERY >

MARRIED LIFE.Characters fumble towards their passions leading to a complicated web of deceit, murder plans, love and lies. Rated PG-13. At the Minor.

SAMSON AND DELILAH.San Francisco Opera performs sweeping biblical epic in pure Digital Cinema. First of four SF Opera Cinemacasts, runs March 29-30 at Fortuna.

SUPERHERO MOVIE.Spoof movie takes aim at biggest superhero blockbusters of our time. Rated PG-13. At Mill Creek, the Broadway and Fortuna.

Reviews

THE BAND’S VISIT.Director Eran Kolirin’s tale of an Egyptian police band stranded for a night in a seemingly boring Israeli town is an unexpected delight. After having arrived in the wrong town and unable to catch a bus until the next morning, the musicians find themselves at a café owned by the striking, self-possessed Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), who offers to find them lodging for the night. Of the eight musicians in the band, we only really get to know three well: Tawfiq, the officious proud lieutenant who leads the band, his meek second in command, who never finished his grand concerto and Haled, the young troublemaker of the group who has a fondness for Chet Baker, and who tries to charm any and all women who cross his path.

As Tawfiq, actor Sasson Gabai expertly plays a man who initially seems like a petty martinet, but reveals hidden depths of sadness beneath his repressed shell of propriety and politeness as he spends the evening with café owner Dina, who’s obviously as sad and lonely as he is. When she casually points out to Tawfiq a married man in the restaurant that she has had an affair with, we realize both how bold she is and how starved she is for real companionship. Their soulful interactions and missed connections are the heart of the film.

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