ENCOUNTER—Liron Livo as Eyal and Lubna Azabal as Rana in “Strangers,” at the Portland Jewish Film Festival.

‘Strangers’ seeks Israeli-Palestinian peace in new generation

Jewish Film Festival Runs through April 26

By MICHAEL FOX

article created on: 2009-04-16T00:00:00

A few years ago, an Israeli filmmaker in his 40s told me he didn’t expect peace to happen until a future generation of Israelis and Palestinians came of age that was unburdened by the old narratives and grudges.

The innovative, uneven Israeli drama “Strangers” takes that sentiment a step further, proposing that understanding and reconciliation have a better chance if the youthful parties are far removed from their native lands. In this case, the location is a Berlin subway, where the hunky Israeli Eyal and the dark-haired Palestinian beauty Rana mix up their backpacks and wind up mixing it up.

It’s a romantic idea, perhaps a little naïve, but most moviegoers under the age of 30 will be quite happy to embrace a can’t-we-all-get-along fantasy imbued with sexual tension. With the drop-dead gorgeous Liron Levo and Lubna Azabal playing the leads, the set-up is movie-perfect—which makes the film’s subsequent attempts to incorporate reality harder to accept.

Shot mostly with a handheld camera in a casual, intimate style, “Strangers” is noteworthy less for its superficial insights into the Israeli-Palestinian situation than for reflecting the 21st-century gestalt of international 20-somethings who inhabit a mobile, fluid world where geographical borders, language barriers and class differences are unimportant.

The common currency is the vitality and optimism that comes with being young and alive and possessing fully operational hormones. One infers that some of the characters, namely Eyal, have rejected (or at least have not yet accepted) traditional mores and paths and roles. But hooking up provides a pleasant diversion while he’s figuring out who he is and what he wants.

“Strangers,” which had its international premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007, screens in the Portland Jewish Film Festival April 19 in the Whitsell Auditorium at the Portland Art museum.

In a risky experiment that doesn’t fully pay off, the film was scripted and improvised as it was being shot. While “Strangers” does capture both the fumbling awkwardness and innate attraction of two strangers connecting, Azabal in particular often seems to be marking time rather than coming up with lines that move a scene forward.

The filmmakers chose Berlin less for the echoes of the Holocaust or the Munich Olympics than because it was the setting for the 2006 World Cup. One of the most effective scenes (partly because it doesn’t rely on dialogue) is a montage of Rana and Eyal enjoying their first night on the town together, watching a soccer match on a huge outdoor screen and mingling with the crowd.

The first third or so of the film is an enjoyable travelogue that floats on the easy-on-the-eyes charms of its leads. The rest of the film spins on plot turns and complications that are wholly unexpected and range from riveting and wrenching to unbelievable.

The 2006 war broke out during filming, and the moviemakers elected to incorporate it into the script. Most of the time co-directors Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor creatively and adroitly handle the collision of the personal and the political, but they leave in a few too many clumsy and forced moments.

These stumbles wouldn’t matter so much if the foundation of the film—the relationship between Rana and Eyal—were constructed more solidly. Sexual allure, and even infatuation, are easy to understand, but we need to be convinced as the movie unfolds that Rana is so special that Eyal is compelled to be with her.

Some suspension of disbelief is likewise required to accept Eyal, the nicest, kindest, most sensitive and most accommodating Israeli male ever glimpsed in a movie (not to mention real life). If anybody can rectify Israel’s image around the world, and maybe even negotiate a peace treaty, he’s the one.

Michael Fox is a writer in San Francisco. This story made possible by a grant from the Judith and Edwin Cohen Foundation.