In fuga con il nemico

Zaytoun (2012) is an Israeli film directed by Eran Riklis. Abdallah El Akal stars as Fahed, a Palestinian adolescent who lives in a camp in Lebanon. The American Actor Stephen Dorff is the Israeli fighter pilot Yoni, who is captured by the PLO when his plane is shot down.

The two make common cause when their goals come together. Yoni wants to escape and return to his unit in Israel. Fahed wants Yoni to take him to Palestine. When he gets to Palestine, he wants to plant an olive tree that the family has kept alive in the hope that they can return to their home and replant it.

The basic plot is not new. We saw it over 50 years ago when Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis starred in the 1958 movie "The Defiant Ones." Poitier and Curtis--natural enemies--are literally chained together. El Akal and Dorff are symbolically chained together, but the concept is the same. Can two people from different camps, who dislike and distrust each other, work together to achieve something important to both of them? Can the wall of hatred that separates them be weakened or even taken down?

Although the plot isn't new, the movie is still spellbinding. The actors are both excellent, and the settings look and feel real. The story requires some suspension of disbelief, but the gritty, authentic atmosphere, as well as the interaction between the pilot and the boy, worked for me.

We saw this movie at the Little Theatre, as part of the first-rate Rochester Jewish Film Festival. It will work well enough on DVD, but seeing it on the large screen would be better. For some reason, Zaytoun carries a dismal 6.2 rating on IMDb. This doesn't make sense to me--it's a much better film than that. Find it and see it!

Beautiful movie. A study of bonding of highly improbable friends. Gives the viewer much to discuss and contemplate.

The script is thin but well written. The performances, excellent, particularly the boy and the bit cast. The sets are realistic. The Galilee scenes were lovely. I could feel the affection to the land as well as each other.

Highly recommended.

Well intended small storied movie with backdrop of war between Israel and Lebanon. Well cast and shot in exotic places. From the Hollywood actor of 'Brake' fame and the director of 'Lemon Tree' joined hands together for this project. A couple of years ago I saw 'Lemon Tree', this director is really a master rendering movies with complicated theme. From characters to concept and emotions it was well balanced. The second half is what gives more depth in human emotions than the conflict between two people. Definitely it is not a masterpiece, but where it takes place and what it deals were much reasonable to praise.

It is set in 1982 in war torn Lebanon. An Israeli pilot Yoni, who crash land in Beirut is taken captive by Palestine Liberation Organization. There he meets a 12 year old boy Fahed whose father was recently killed in an Israeli air strike. He knows that he's not him, but the boy raged with full of anger to take revenge. For the reason he must give up it and should cope with the prisoner to fulfil his father's wish. So they make a deal before teaming up and try to escape from there. The rest of the story is a journey that happens on the road to their freedom.

The title represents an olive plant that carried all the time by the boy in the movie. As it an Arabic title of an Israeli movie, various languages spoken throughout. For me everything was just same because I was depended on a subtitle. The movie won my heart for the reason that the main two characters considered as enemies to each other, but the time being they begin to understand. Theirs journey on a dangerous path against all the human created boundary was really touched me. Better than I expected, kinda partially rare movie should be recognised in vastly.

Eran Riklis likes stories in which a long, picturesque trip is paralleled by an inner journey of discovering the past, or the self. In Zeytoun, the trip is from Beirut across the border into Israel, and although I'm an Israeli who's never been to Lebanon, an aerial stock shot or two of Beirut was enough to sell me on the Lebaneseness of the locations seen in the first part of the movie, which were actually well-chosen sites in Israel. Unlike another viewer here on IMDb, I had little trouble accepting Stephen Dorff as an Israeli. Israelis come in all colors and sizes. Granted, his English was too good, but so was the Arab kid's. A brief sequence showing kids learning English verbs at school didn't really solve the problem. One makes allowances, though, when the visuals look realistic and the situation depicted is compelling, as here. My problem, and perhaps the problem of the Israeli public (which did not flock to see this movie), was that the audience is invited, a bit heavy-handedly, to sympathize with the Arab family's desire for repatriation to Israel without any balanced mention of the context in which such families found themselves outside Israel in the first place.

This story takes place in 1982, and is about the young boy, Fahed (Abdallah El Akal), whose family has suffered a lot because of the war in Beirut. One day, an Israeli fighter pilot, Yoni (Stephen Dorff), is captured by the local forces, and Fahed sees and opportunity to free the pilot, so he can take him back to his former home, where his father wanted to plant the family's olive-tree, but never had the chance to do so, because of the war.

At first, the two are mortal enemies, only working together because they need each other to reach their individual goals: Fahed wants to return back to his old family home, and Yoni wants to escape from prison, where he is bound to be tortured and interrogated, before he is used politically to exchange prisoners from the Israelis.

But along the way, the two form a tight friendship, where they both save each others lives on numerous occasions, until they (hopefully) reach their goals. It just goes to show, that even during the worst situations, friendships can arise when you are able to look past ones differences, and instead focus on common interests and dreams.

This is the newest movie from director Eran Riklis (Etz Limon, The Syrian Bride), and he still manages to make very interesting movies on highly debated subjects about the situation in Israel and the middle east in general. The acting from the leading actors is very impressive as well, especially from the young El Akal, who should have a long career ahead of him. It is also a quite interesting turn from the otherwise rather mainstream actor, Stephen Dorff, who most people probably know best from action-films like "Blade", "Public Enemies" and "Felon".

A highly recommended film, which also can be used for educational purposes. 8/10.