Tel Aviv on Fire

Making a film about the conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians (or, shortly, 'the conflict' as the locals call it) is probably almost as complicated as the peace talks between the two sides. Yet, scriptwriter and director Sameh Zoabi chose not only to write and direct such a film, but also chose as topic the making nowadays of such a film titled 'Tel Aviv on Fire'. The genre? A soap opera - one of the most popular forms of cinema and television entertainment in the Middle East, with peak viewing rates among both the Jewish and the Arab sectors. The historical moment when the action takes place? The 1967 war, one of the key moments of the "conflict," a crushing Israeli victory and Arab defeat, perceived in polarized opposite ways by the two sides. An Arab television studio in Ramallah is making a soap opera that tries to rewrite history, as many movies from big houses do, in this case the 1967 war history. A brilliant cinematic idea - a soap opera in a soap opera.

The main hero (performed by the excellent actor Kais Nashif) is an aspiring film maker who works as a Hebrew language consultant for the soap opera, and who finds himself blessed with the opportunity to become the script writer of the series, having to reconcile all the parties that seem impossible to coexist in this part of the world: the Arab sponsors wishing that the film has a more patriotic message, the Israeli officer commanding the crossing point between Jerusalem and territories who wants to embellish the image of the Israeli officer in the story, the producer who wants to make a successful film, and his girlfriend who doubts his feelings. They all follow the successive episodes of the series and the way the action progresses, but can there be any outcome that is acceptable to all? Or is such an outcome just as impossible as a solution for peace in the Middle East?

The hero in the film has as tools his own talent and a few portions of humus (another topic of Israeli-Palestinian cultural mini-conflict). Director Sameh Zoabi uses the tools of soap opera combined with absurd humor, so suited to a conflict unwanted by most of those involved. Zoabi does not avoid stereotypes, on the contrary, uses them skillfully and in balanced doses. The result is better than I expected. He will not succeed in making everyone happy, I am convinced that many of those who have seen or will see the film will find smaller and bigger details that make them angry and will claim that the screenwriter /director has exaggerated in his sympathy with the other side. Probably even angrier will be some of those who will not see the movie but talk and write about it. Many of the situations seemed to me too exaggerated or unlikely, but I think such deviations are possible and admissible in a comedy that tries to approach in the satirical registry situations that are not simple at all. An extra merit of the film is that it brings to screen an intellectual and middle class Palestinian environment that is not shown too often in local films. I found 'Tel Aviv on Fire' to be an amusing and a necessary film. After all, if we really want to live in peace one day, we need, among other, to be able to sit one by the other, watch the same movie and laugh together. Even if the reasons and the scenes we laugh at are not always the same.

Tel Aviv on Fire is a jubilant comedy about Israel and Palestine, grazing the absurd on serious subjects. The interactions between the different characters from either Israel or Palestine are a veritable delight. The movie Tel Aviv on Fire is about the shooting of an eponymous soap opera, a kind of an imaginary remake of the pathetic and immortal The Young and the Restless (1973), taking place in Tel Aviv and dealing with love between Israelis and Palestinians, during the Six-Day War, with spies, double agents, generals, terrorists and tutti quanti.

The movie is essentially based on these three characters: 1) Tala is the lead actress within the soap opera, coming from France. She is a middle-aged starlet, a seductive and manipulative woman, and regularly gazes at her own navel. She is played by Lubna Azabal, moving and sublime in Incendies (2010). 2) Salam is a somewhat clumsy but endearing man who, thanks to a happy combination of circumstances, will be promoted co-scriptwriter on the series. Of course, as human as he is, he will use his new position, a bit for himself, in order to win back his beloved darling. 3) Assi is a guard at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and is terribly imbued with his person to a point that makes him hilarious. His megalomania allows him to interfere in writing the script!

This movie is definitely a must see: the trio Lubna Azabal, Kais Nashif and Yaniv Biton is a 'bomb' (an absurd and two-penny joke, freely inspired from the movie).

It's a pleasant surprise how a Palestinian film about a very serious issue could be funny at all. But this one pulls it off rather nicely.

The approach to make a film within a film works beautifully in this one. And the result is pure comedy.

The viewer heartily laughs at the seeming incongruity of Salam's situation. He has to cross the border daily to go to the West Bank where he works as a film production assistant and finding himself in a bind one morning after making an innocuous remark to an Israeli border guard. This silly encounter and its immediate outcome changes his life forever.

Kais Nashif is naturally funny as Salam. Yaniv Biton as Assi is credible as the border commander. His interaction with Salam as they finish the script of the soap opera is hilarious. And the ending is a marriage of convenience of sorts. It's one that satisfies extremists on either side of the aisle.

The message of the film is simple: promote the peace when each side listens to the other. Assi thinks so.

I watched this and I loved it! I really liked the fact that you couldn't predict where it was going. Sure, it wasn't going to end 'badly', like people dying, but the end game as definitely not given up. That's what kept me gripped. The humor is very well done, very subtle, as is the political aspects of this movie. I like that the director wanted to remind people of how life is in the occupied territories, but not in a lecturing manner. And we don't get beaten over the head with it either. Some people have commented on the portrayal of Salam, and how the actor seems to just be wrong for the role. I beg to differ. I think he's perfect! The whole hilarious aspect of this is that he's kind of bumbling his way to the top. He's very imperfect, and bad things happen to him, but then turn into good things. It's just funny how everything just works out, so that's part of the charm of it. If he was a verbose, charismatic person, it would distract from the soap opera acting on the set within the film. The best thing about this film is that everyone plays an important part in moving the story forward to the final outcome, even the shopkeeper with the expired canned hummus. No single actor or character steals scenes, everyone plays their parts and does a good job of it. The ending is definitely the best 'twist' ending I've seen in a long time! Highly recommended if you want to watch a feel-good movie set in a difficult, politically charged environment.

This film was an absolute pleasure to watch. It is rare, in my experience, to find a foreign comedy that still works as well for me, an American, as it might for a native speaker of the language. I also expected much more in terms of heavy subject matter than I got in the film. As much as it is about the conflict in the Middle East, the conflict is more of the backdrop and subtext than the main action we are given.

There isn't a lot in the cinematography or editing that is super amazing but it is all serviceable and doesn't get in the way of the story, even if it doesn't add much either.

The main draw for this film is the acting and writing. Both of these work in tandem to create characters and situations that we are able to identify with and laugh at without getting so wrapped up in projecting the themes of the movie across in an obvious or pointed way. It never feels preachy but keeps its lightheartedness in tact so you are surprised when you get to the end of the film and find that you are still thinking about coexistence and getting along with people who are different than us.

The humor in the film is deftly done, not giving in to the temptation to be total parody, although some small amount is required, and also not giving in to total realism, slamming one side harder than the other as the writer's political views accidentally bleed through the page. It never gets so serious that you feel like the writer just has an axe to grind for a particular political party nor does it stray so far into satirical farce that you can really watch it and call it frivolous. It is both true to life and ridiculous at the same time.

There were definitely things in this film that were hard for me as an American to understand. I'm not super well versed in the history of the Israel-Palestine Conflict and thus don't immediately know an Arab from a Jew just by looking at them or even from a quick glance at a uniform. This made it somewhat difficult to know what side of things certain characters were on at certain points but it was never so bad that I felt I had missed the point of the movie. It actually got me more interested in reading more about the history of the region. I definitely feel that there were certain jokes I didn't get , though, because of this cultural ignorance on my part just the same as I'm sure some of the TV Production scenes would have been less funny to someone who hadn't worked in the industry before.

All in all, it was a pretty great film. I laughed a lot and really appreciated the creative solutions they found to the main conflicts in the film which predominantly revolve around Palestinian/Israeli issues. This film is a great example of how humor can be used to bring a level of humanity to people that we are all tempted to believe are simply expressions of common stereotypes or political straw-man.