Tel Aviv On Fire

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.

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 Les feux de l'amour (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).

"Tel Aviv on Fire" is an instant classic. I didn't think a comedy that revolves around the Israeli/Palestinian conflict was possible but Sameh Zoabi pulled it off. That is not to say that the movie downplays the suffering and struggles of everyday life there, it is clear as day on the screen. But even the darkest of situations requires a sense of humor and perhaps humor can be the first step towards peace.

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.

Salam's uncle is the producer of Tel Aviv on Fire, a spy thriller / soap opera aimed at Palestinians but the show is also popular with Israelis (especially women). Salam is hired as dialect coach, but gets promoted to writer after his meddling causes the chief writer to quit. Salam tries to draw on family and friends for inspiration, but falls under the influence of the commander of the checkpoint he has to cross twice daily. The commander helps with script ideas, but pushes for the show to become more pro-Israeli. Meanwhile, his uncle, and the show's backers, have other ideas, trying to deal with their own trauma of Palestinian losses due to the six-day war.

This is an amusing yarn, with Salam being pulled in all directions by people with different agendas, while trying to fill a script and chasing a girl. Good lightweight entertainment from a film with a Palestine / Israel location.