Die Band von Nebenan

A fully uniformed Egyptian police band arrives in Israel to perform at the opening ceremony of a new Arab Cultural Center but no one shows up to meet them at the airport. Lonely and tired, they end up taking the wrong bus, ending up in Bet Hatikvah, a lonely outpost in the Negev that, according to one of its residents, not only doesn't have a cultural center but has no culture. Unable to get transportation until the next morning, the band agrees to stay overnight at a local restaurant run by Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), a free-spirited but lonely Israeli restaurateur who longs for companionship.

Eran Kolirin's A Band's Visit is the story of the small connections that bring people together. Israeli's submission as Best Foreign Film at the Oscars (rejected because much of its dialog is in English), it is about what some of us have lost in modern society – the ability to reach across cultural, political, and language barriers to connect with fellow human beings. Over the course of the evening, the Israelis and the Egyptians approach each other tentatively and little by little, the staid Egyptians open up to their Israeli hosts, finding some common ground exemplified in a spontaneous dinner table rendition of George Gershwin's "Summertime".

When the two groups begin to get to know each other, they find that beneath the language and cultural differences, they are simply people - full of joy and sadness, friendship and loneliness, connection and loss. Tewfiq (Sasson Gabal), the conductor of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, is formal and rigid in his demeanor but is able to strike up a friendship with Dina (Ronit Elkabetz). After some awkward silences, the melancholy conductor reveals details of tragic losses in his family and how he feels that he is to blame. Another band member, Khaled (Saleh Bakri) decides to accompany local Papi (Shlomi Avraham) and his date to a roller skating rink. In a memorable scene, Khaled offers the socially backward Papi some instructions on courting his shy girl friend.

In another moving sequence, band member Simon (Kalifa Natour) plays a lovely but unfinished composition for the clarinet for Itzik (Rubi Moscovich) who tells him that he should end the piece, not with a traditional showy display but with what is there for him at the moment, "not sad, not happy, a small room, a lamp, a bed, a child sleeping, and tons of loneliness." A Band's Visit is a film about Israeli's and Arabs but without the usual backdrop of boundary disputes, the peace process, or the religious divide, even avoiding the clichés about how music is a universal language. It is a small film but wise in its understated depiction of humanity's common bonds, slow-paced but held together with a sensitive charm.

We know there is going to be trouble for the arriving members of the Egyptian orchestra, when they are not met at the airport. To make matters worse, they pile into a bus that takes them to a place, so isolated, that for all practical purposes they have gone to another planet. The Israeli town is in the Negev and has little life on its own.

The orchestra's leader, the proper Tawfiq, goes to get help when they get off the bus. The only thing in sight is Dina's cafe, where nothing seems to happen. Dina, who is skeptical at first, realizes the plight of these men, stranded until the next day in that isolated spot with practically no money, decides to feed them soup and bread. Dina, who is a lonely woman who has seen better days, decides to take Tawfiq and Haled to her own home and bullies two men that hang out in her cafe to take the others to their relatives.

Dina, after taking the men to her own small apartment, decides to take the men out to a small eatery. As she gets to know them, she begins to develop a fondness for the older musician, who also feels the attraction, but he is too polite to do anything about it. Following the night in the small town we watch as the band walks out in formation to where they will be picked up.

Eran Kolinn, the writer and director of "Tbe Band's Visit", created an intimate portrait of lonely people coming together because of circumstances beyond their control. There is also an undercurrent message about how bitter enemies can come together when they really know each other. Talking seems to dispel old fears since we all are the same no matter where.

The film is enhanced by the quiet dignity of Sasson Gabai, who plays the band's director. He plays Tawfiq with such flair that he wins us from the start. Ronit Elkabetz is seen as Dina, the woman of a certain age, now stuck in that forsaken place. She lives a lonely existence in that forsaken place that she is grateful for the distraction of the stranded musicians and sees a possibility of some bliss even if it's short-lived.

Eran Kolinn is a talent that will go to bigger and better things because he shows he can do it, judging from his work in this winning film.

Eran Kolirin is a name to watch out for. This film maker is simply brilliant. In the band's visit he tells a quite simple story, but not without pulling a trick here and there and believe me, he's not a one trick pony. Actor performances are subdued and very truthful making the movie a story of unpersued dreams that goes straight to the heart. It's warm melancholy mood never gets heavy or painful cause it's countered so wittily with scenes that make you smile from ear to ear. To top it all off there's well chosen music, honest photography and clever camera direction. The Band's visit tells of a classic mix-up, but without ever being cheap.

As a dedicated husband of a BAFTA voting member, we trawl through 100+ DVD's at this time of year. The Hollywood movies all blur into muchness, but then this film comes along without any fancy marketing blurb, no fancy box, just a DVD in a plastic sleeve. We put it in and said we would give it 10 minutes, and spent the next 100 minutes or so spellbound and laughing our socks off! The acting was simply wonderful, the comic situations and timing were redolent of "The Office", and the political analogies were intriguing, The soundtrack was the best of any 2007 movie imho. It gets our nomination for Best Film, Best Direction, Best Editing, Best Soundtrack, with further nominations for the "Dina" and "Tewfiq" actors plus a vote for others in the band in the supporting actor category.

Try to see it if you can!

In an ocean of predictable movies, "The Band's Visit" is an island of bliss. When you see the advertising about the story of an Egyptian police band getting lost in Israel, you're likely to roll the film instantly in your mind - conflict, hatred, perhaps some awkward humor, and a forced bit or two of vague optimism about the future.

Forget all that, it's some other movie. This one is free and clear of anything set, routine, obvious, predictable. "The Band's Visit" is about people - mostly awkward, all real, well- and ill-behaved in turn - and not about agenda, ideology, politics. It's an unsentimental "people movie" (remember when Hollywood used to churn those out?), enormously likable, a treasurehouse of humanism.

"Visit" is also a film you have to work with. It's not dumped on the audience in its fullness by its writer and (first-time) director, Eran Kolirin. Action is slow or nonexistent, dialogue is halting, silences are rampant. And yet it all works so well: even if you have never heard Egyptian music, when the band finally plays (as the end-credits roll), you're guaranteed to groove on it.

Kolirin is a writer and director of great economy. The characters of and relationships between the eight band members - in their powder blue, Sgt. Pepper-wannabe, uniforms are revealed through a word here, an expression there, and pretty soon, you really know them... except that later you realize you didn't.

The head of the band, Tewfig, is an officious, prissy, downcast, silent figure, and yet as the camera stays on him a great deal of the time, slowly you are getting used to him, and when he finally puts together a couple of full sentences, you may feel acceptance and even appreciation.

It is at this point, far into the movie, that you understand why Dina is pursuing him. Dina is the attractive - if blowsy - owner of a small cafe in the Israeli desert town where the band is stranded. There is much, much more to "Visit," but just watching the Tewfig-Dina story, and reveling in the performances of the two actors, is well worth the price of admission.

The band leader is Sasson Gabal, and I must admit being incredulous finding out after seeing the movie that he is a famous Israeli actor. Not only does he appear authentically Egyptian, but when starts singing an Arabic song - oy! Dina is Ronit Elkabetz, an actor so fine that you'd never suspect her of being one; what you see on the screen is the character, totally believable.

"Visit" is a rare film, one that keeps running in your mind long after the band strikes up.