The Band’s Visit [Bikur Ha-Tizmuret] (***½)

Directed By: Eran Kolirin
Starring: Sasson Gabai, Ronit Elkabets, Saleh Bakri, Khalifa Natour
Seen: November 15th 2008

***½ Out of ****

The Band’s Visit is a magical little film. It starts off with the simple and strangely funny arrival. We see only a bus, with a man taking a big beach ball out of the rear, walking around and putting it back into the bus’ front. He gets in the bus and drives of. As the bus pulls away the camera remains stationary, revealing the Band. These guys are proud of themselves, and you can see it. Every uniform is perfect.

The bus stop they are left at is in the middle of basically nowhere, and meekly they start looking around. Where are they? This Egyptian police band has come to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab Centre, but all they see is a very small nondescript town a few hundred yards off. They walk over, and again we see the band standing in the middle of this town, they are lost.

Lieutenant-Colonel Tawfiq Zacharya (Gabai) walks up to the small street restaurant of Dina (Elkabets) to ask for some food on the men’s request. So they eat, but still, they’re lost. Tawfiq asks Dina where they need to be, and they find out they are in the wrong small town. There is no transport out of the town until the next morning, so they’ll have to spend the night…

What follows is one of the most awkward and tender evenings ever captured on film. The band is scattered across the town, with Tawfiq and the ladie’s man Haled (Bakri) ending up at Dina’s place, and most of the rest of the band at another house in the town. The rest of the band have a massive communication problem with the ‘natives’, and all of them mostly sit and stare at each other while gossiping amongst themselves about the others.

Tawfiq finds a tender moment with Dina when they’re out, but his almost overblown sense of responsibility has them back home quite early. The film is filled with some of the most awkward silences I’ve seen, and it is presented beautifully and sweetly in a way which will have everyone feel as awkward as the characters. The Band’s Visit is an absolute Joy…