Sof Ha'Olam Smola

This movie is full of characters and incidents, almost as if the writers felt they might never have the chance to write again, but I think that consistently it is about people trying to repair their wounded pride. The two immigrant communities involved-- assigned housing not in the center of Israel nor yet in Eilat (the road sign says it's 170 kilometers to Eilat) but in a tiny desert town-- have different native languages but they share a resentment at having come down in the world from their pre-emigrant lives and seeing no way back. The men resent their factory jobs and ultimately strike against their employer. Some of the women resent their lack of opportunity and try to prove their worth by taking lovers. The story is set in the 1960s and includes occasional narration from the point of view of the present, making it a sort of "Our Town" or "I Remember Mama" saluting the loved ones of the past-- as if everything were different now, although in today's society too the argument could still be made that geography is destiny.

In Avi Nesher's warm and humorous film, very British Indians settle in a dry town near the desert and must learn to cope with their French speaking Moroccan neighbors. That they are all Jews helps little; there are major differences in language, customs, and attitudes. Set in 1968 and narrated by Sarah, the teenage daughter from Bombay, the film deals gently but genuinely with the problems of adolescent angst as well as more serious issues of struggling immigrants dumped by the bureaucracy in a remote border town. Despite the insistence of Nicole, Sarah's friend and the sixteen year old town beauty, that nothing locally is worth chronicling, the film is particularly adept at depicting the greatest passions in the most ordinary people. Though the narrator is not always aware of it, there are love affairs, labor unrest, tragic illness, jealousies, and other personal dramas. The larger issues include a strike at the bottling plant, the town's only employer, and a visit by the championship cricket team, arranged by the British consulate. Although the Moroccan Jews initially jeer this "child's game," they eventually join the Indian ex pats for the match, with predictably hilarious and disastrous results. By the time adulthood arrives with the girls receiving their notice for the Army, we have a sense how new Israelis are formed from their varied ethnic backgrounds.

Nesher's casting is impeccable, down to the smallest role. Particularly wonderful is the way he matches the tall, statuesque Moroccan wife with her short, older, balding husband, and makes their caring relationship totally believable. The fact is that all the characters are memorable, from the sexy widow upstairs, to the handsome Indian dance teacher, to the Tel Aviv poet, teaching high school in the desert. Despite its mixture of spoken Hebrew, English, French, pidgin, and gestures, the excellent subtitles manage to convey even puns effectively. This polyglot of languages, as the clashing customs, reminds us just how very diverse Jews are, how the cultures of their birth countries create a Jewishness that is never monolithic, until, perhaps, it is transformed into "Israeliness."

Turn Left At The End Of The World is a great film! Avi Nesher who is a cult israeli film director returns! Left Turn At The End Of The World deals with the problems of newcomers who have been sent to the a small town just at the end of the world. As much as it sounds dreadful and hopeless, this film is actually very funny and entertaining! As an Israeli man, I can certainly say that nothing new has been made by Avi Nesher, it's the same old formula of typical israeli racism combined with sex lol. In addition, I can even say that this film is a developed version of Eskimo Lemon also known as Lemon Popsicles abroad. Bottom line : Watch this film if you would like to have an hour and a half of pure entertaining.

For non-Israelis, Left Turn at the End of the World is a revealing look at conflicts between Jewish communities originating in different parts of the world. Forced to live next to one another in a desolate "development town" in the Negev, Indian Jews from Bombay and Moroccan Jews, each confronting a loss of status (or imagined status) in their countries of origin, begin by despising one another and ultimately learn to live with one another, mainly through the agency of two teenage girls who befriend one another despite their differences in outlook. For those who do not speak Hebrew comfortably, this film is easier to follow than most Israeli films, not only because the subtitles are especially well done, but because the Indian Jews converse among themselves in English and the Moroccan Jews mostly in French with only rudimentary Hebrew to link them. Although one could summarize the story without ruining the experience for a viewer, it is not the plot that matters but the conflict and the accommodation. The acting is splendid, though only a couple of the actors were known (outside Israel) before this film, and only a couple have been heard from since. The two girls -- both are actually in their 20's -- the man-eating widow, the Indian father and mother and the Moroccan father and mother all distinguish themselves. It's funny at times, emotionally wrenching and true.

It is true that this film was a major hit in Israel and no wonder one can easily guess why ? One wild guess is that it did all it could to portray a hippie dippy picture of the immigrant question.The immigrants in question are from India and Morocco and the film is about their efforts to find a firm footing within Israelian society.The film fails to score as its depiction of immigrants is much too unreal,lacks credibility and to top it all a lot of irrelevant material is added which bears no link to the film's plot line.The Indian actors in this film have been dubbed as failures in India and watching them act in an Israelian film the people wondered as to how they landed such roles for themselves.The game of cricket in a film from Israel like this one was a pure gimmick as the film maker wanted to cash the popularity of this sport in Asian subcontinent.This is a film one must watch only to ascertain what made it so famous.