User reviews

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.

I liked this movie. As a viewer, I was subjected to a wide range of emotions during this film: joy, frustration, embarrassment, delight and so on.

One must understand that Israel and Egypt had been long time enemies (until the peace agreement in 1979) and that Israeli Jews and Arabs have very different views on so many matters. Within this context the humanity of the film really shines. People of such different backgrounds are basically the same; Same hopes and aspirations, same fears and frustrations etc. The same things make all of us tick.

This film is also about strangers and others. And how we can help one another. The scene with Haled and the Israeli boy and girl in the skating rink is, my opinion, classic.

enjoy

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.

A movie that should be getting lot more press.

Enjoyable and bit quirky to see the kinds of situations people get into, that are much like we may experience anywhere else in the world.

Others have laid out the plot well and nothing more needs to be said about how the story develops.

I found two scene in this movie the kind that one must remember, rather like the many one may recall from Bogart in Casablanca.

The exchange at the phone and the scenes at the skating rink are precious and very well acted.

This is a movie I recommend seeing and then putting into memory to come back and see again and again just for the pure pleasure of a well developed comedy.

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!

The band, an group of eight Egyptians looking slightly stilted and uncomfortable but always professional, are dropped off at the Israeli airport, but there is no bus to drive them. They eventually get one, but it drops them off in the middle of nowhere. They walk to a local restaurant/dive that's about as empty as the rest of the small town - it's the wrong town, of course, as one letter was off in the name of the town of the band-mates inquired about. So it's time to stay overnight in this sleepy little desert town before things get straightened out to their destination.

With that simple premise, Eran Kolirin creates an atmosphere that seems like the awkward, piercingly funny but "low-key" (in other words not overly dramatic) characters in a Jarmusch film, and despite the 'small' nature of the story, that there isn't very much to go in its 80 minute running time, a lot can be explored through interaction. This is probably not a 'great' film, but it is a great example for those skeptical that an Israeli film has to have some political context or subtext or whatever. The only scene that has the hint of unease between Israel and Arab is an already warm, strange scene at a dinner table where an Israeli man recollects singing "Summertime" as everyone at the table joins in. There are looks exchanged here and there, but nothing to suggest unrest of the expected sort. This story could take place in just about anywhere.

By aiming things towards the little details of people relating on terms of friendly interaction, of the light dances of affection like between the boy who "hears the sea" and the "gloomy girl" at the skating rink (probably the single funniest scene without a word spoken, all movement), the first-time director creates a little play on people who live and/or work in a marginalized part of the world. That doesn't mean they're poor or ignorant, far from it. But it's a sweet view into people we otherwise wouldn't know much about (after all, who makes light, wise comedies on the misadventures of a police band from Egypt?) The performances are endearing, the music has the ring of not taking much too seriously, and melodrama is kept at a low (if not, in the underlying sense, melancholy). Only a few scenes (like the running story strand of the officer and the other guy waiting at the pay phone) fall sort of flat based on the tone already sent.

Greetings again from the darkness. Stellar film from rising star, Israeli filmmaker Eran Kolirin. This film offers the beautifully delivered message that regardless of our culture, we all want to be connected to another person. Other than the language we speak, we really aren't so dissimilar.

The Egyptian Police Orchestra is stranded on their way to play at the opening of an Arab Culture Center. The language barrier causes them to be stuck in a one-horse town with a similar type name. What follows is a touching story and terrific film-making. So much is communicated with so few words.

There are three of four amazing scenes. My favorite is probably the funniest in the film. At the roller rink, one of the band members assists an awkward local with the proper technique in consoling a girl whose feelings he has hurt. It is funny and touching and moving and insightful all at once. The band leader's scenes with Dena, the beautiful and lonely restaurateur who takes the band in for the evening, are so emotional and sincere that I kept wanting to scream at them both! Just great stuff.

I look forward to more from Eran Kolirin and it is very sad that this film was disqualified in the Foreign Language category due to the determination that too much English was used. Still, it doesn't change the fact that this is a terrific movie and story.

This little police orchestra from Egypt arrives in Israel and gets lost. They end up in the most boring village you've ever seen. On the surface. Soon different kinds of relations starts, between different kinds of people. We are all individuals.

This is not just a small-talk tale about the fruitful meeting between two cultures and two powers. It's also about loneliness and how people cope with it. There's the loneliness from being old, the loneliness from being sexually outspoken, the loneliness from being retarded when it comes to passion. It's both a very sad and hopeful movie.

Perhaps the main theme is music and the consolation which is possible from it.

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.

The Band's Visit (2008) ****

What a charming little film this is. Why is it that foreign comedies seem to be so deftly able to manage intelligence, insight, drama and politics so thoughtfully and naturally? The Band's Visit takes a topic that could have been ripe for violence, but turns it into a tale spun of friendship and our common humanity.

The film is set in a middle of nowhere Israeli desert town. An Arab police orchestra from Egypt has traveled here by mistake, looking for a town with an almost identical name where they are to play at the opening of an Arab cultural centre. When they arrive in the small town, he's greeted with the news that there is no Arab culture here; "no Israeli culture either, no culture at all!"

As the group stands in their bright blue suits with their instruments at their feet, they negotiate a deal to get something to eat at the local diner, owned by Dina. After chatting with the bands leader, Tawfiq, she offers to set them up for the night - some at the diner, some with the two men who seem to do nothing but sit outside the diner, and some with her.

It's obvious that she is attracted to the older Tawfiq. She invites him to come with her. He takes along Khaled, the young band member who lollygags and womanizes. That night the band goes with their hosts, and spend the night doing various things. One group, lead by the band's second in command, who has written a concerto but never finished it, eats dinner with an Israeli family. There are tensions that are mostly calmed through a common denominator - song. One member waits for a call on the payphone from the embassy, a phone also stalked by a young man waiting for a call from his girlfriend - How he shoes his annoyance when the phone is in use is quite funny. Khaled goes with a young shy Israeli on a double date as the fifth wheel. He shows him how to charm his date, as the three sit on a bench. It one of the films most charming scenes. Elsewhere, Tawfiq and Dina go out and simply chat. She asks him about his life, which he only slowly and reluctantly details.

Things don't go the way we might expect in a more traditional story, but what we're left with is far more satisfying. The film is shot in muted tones, often with shots set up simply for their photographic value. Take for example the numerous shots of the Orchestra lined up in their sky blue suits, or a moment when Tawfiq, Dina, and Khaled return to her apartment for the night where upon entering all three stop and look forward for a few seconds. These shots have no value other than aesthetic reflection, but they work perfectly. That director Kolirin makes this work is a credit to his daring.

The Band's Visit is a incredibly charming film, and a pure delight to watch. Comedy goes from slapstick to subtlety without notice, and to drama and sadness just as easily and back again. Sure we don't get what the usual audience would want out of the final story, but it matters not at all. The pay off in this film is so thoughtful, and so touchingly done, what seemed preferable before seems cheap now. This is a great movie.

Very Original and most enjoyable Comedy. The Band from Alexandrian Police comes to Israel and goes to Beit Tiqva instead of Petah Tiqva by mistake. Sasson Gabai and Ronit Elkabetz play an excellent comedy with a human touch. Beit Hatiqva is a far out town that has one bus a day in the desert. The Residents are originally from Arab Countries and Culture. High Unemployment and Boredem in this far out town. Sasson Gabai plays Tawfik the Band Leader. Sasson is not Egyptian but manages to play the part including small gestures of Middle Class Egyptian Officers. The Rest of the cast are good too. All though the film is very funny there are hints to serious issues. In our fast paced emerging market Society, People are left behind. The Band is a good Old Fashioned Band. Beit Hatiqva is a forgotten town like many in Israel. Most of the movie is in Arabic and English and little Hebrew. Go and see this Human Comedy.

The Band's Visit started slow, long lingering shots that are seen so often in indie films. There isn't a lot of plot in this film. It's mostly about how the characters interact with each other and about their deep psychological problems. There are some funny, awkward quirky moments as seen in so many indie films these days. The best part about the film is the awkward tension between Dina and Tawfiq. It's similar to The Visitor and Once, two movies where the romantic leads have trouble making the connection due to different circumstances. I was told that this film was a comedy and although it was not as funny as I had expected, it's still a worthwhile little film with some very good acting.

So, this is "The Band's Visit"..., well, let me tell you: You can have it. Let's start from the beginning: I saw it wearing headphones, and it was very strange to see these uniformed group of musicians walking a block away from camera, but hearing their heavy steps on the pavement making the same noise as the dinosaurs (or whatever their name is) that were walking in Jurassic Park: Every step sounded like if Godzilla was walking behind my back!! the same with the traffic noise, it was augmented about a thousand times sounding like the worst Kansas tornado behind my screen monitor.

Now about the directing: Every scene is unnecessarily too long and every question issued by one of the actors takes the recipient about 10-20 seconds to answer, and this procedure is maintained throughout the whole film, and if they are not barely talking (none of them seems to be too fluent in the difficult art of conversation), then the long immovable takes become quite unbearable.

Very-very irritating. The script is gray and unmemorable, dull, like all the characters save the woman owner of the Israeli restaurant, the only character with life in it, the rest are kind of zombies walking from left to right on the screen and then from right to left, till the end of the movie.

All the men portrayed in this movie are as dumb as they come, and again, only the restaurant owner shows some intelligence in her eyes and liveliness in her manners.

How can people be so dull!!!

Are they saying in this movie that all policemen are that dumb and pathetic? well, I don't care a hoot, a total waste of time, of money, of everything (and now I have to go to the video store to return this copy).

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.

What I got from this movie is that deep down, in the most basic ways we are all the same. I am a Westerner from Texas, but I identified with several of the characters. Yes, I'm a musician, but not for those reasons do I identify but more for the human condition parts. I also liked the starkness of the remote village. I find that romantic. It really did make me feel like I was there. It breaks my heart to think that Egypt and Israel may again become mortal enemies after just a couple of generations. Just when maybe things were getting better between these countries and their citizens. Neither music nor love can erase the evil that is hate.

The film presents the story of an Egyptian band who have landed in Israel to perform at an Arab cultural centre, but are stranded in a remote town due to a wrong bus they take, leaving them to spend a night in the hostile community. It's modest but charming and amiable delving into the characters trying to mix into a community. Just watch till the very end when the band performs. It's a film you gonna love and remember. Narrated mainly in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, the film was withdrawn from the official selection to Oscars for the Best Film in a Foreign Language. It's a film one should watch to feel the power of storytelling through movies.

Rating: 2 stars out of 4

In Eran Kolirin's stripped-down and understated human comedy "The Band's Visit," a small orchestra made up of eight uniformed Egyptian policemen travels to Israel as part of a cultural-exchange program. Thanks to a scheduling snafu, the band members find themselves stranded in a tiny village in the Negev Desert where they are looked after by a kind and attractive restaurateur (the luminous Ronit Elkabetz) and one of her friends who agree to put the men up for the night. The musicians include a crusty old conductor, played by the marvelously deadpan Sasson Gabai, and a handsome young womanizer and trumpet player (Saleh Bakri) who don't exactly see eye-to-eye on much concerning either music or life.

Like many such films from abroad, "The Band's Visit" eschews obvious narrative flourishes in favor of a more slice-of-life approach to storytelling - indeed, almost to a fault in the case of this particular film. Yet, while there are times when the movie's "smallness" is of so determined and deliberate a nature that it begins to border on the self-conscious, "The Band's Visit" finds its truths in the minutiae of everyday life, in the heartfelt exchanges between characters (particularly between Gabai and Elkabetz), and in the way it acknowledges the commonality of the human condition. The people in the film may come from different - even antagonistic - cultures, but they are quick to discover that there is far more that unites them than divides them in the grander scheme of things.

Coming in at a brief 86-minute running time, "The Band's Visit" is a mere vignette in what is obviously a larger tale of Egypt/Israel relations, one that makes its case for cooperation among all the world's peoples without undue fuss or fanfare.

Even if the Academy didn't allow this film to compete for an Oscar because half of it is in English, it has won 38 awards around the world, including three at Cannes. I never heard of a film winning three awards at Cannes, so you have to figure it is something special.

It is certainly one of the funniest films I have seen. Just imagine an Egyptian police band lost at an Israeli kibbutz out in the middle of nowhere. That premise makes you start laughing before you have seen a single frame.

Ronit Elkabetz is outstanding as the Israeli that takes the band under her wing while they wait for transportation to get to their destination. Sasson Gabai was a riot as the band leader. Stiff as a board, he made it a joy to see him in his discomfort.

But this trip brought the band together, brought some Israelis and Egyptians together, and just showed that there are not really many differences between us.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll simply enjoy this great film.

With a strained formal demeanor and a face wrinkled with vulnerability, Sasson Gabai's bandleader is a direct descendant of Shaike Ophir's Policeman (Azulai) in the bittersweet Israeli movie of that name. This is not a bad ancestry to have, but for a character who is supposed to be Egyptian it's a little awkward. Today Egypt is a grumpy neighbor that has as little contact with Israel as possible, and Egyptians-- or anyone else-- could consider it presumptuous of us Israelis to bring out a movie about the reaction of an Egyptian orchestra to being stranded in Israel. Who are we to characterize them? But the movie was obviously made with an abundance of good will and the foreign press has been kind.

The Band's Visit was nominated Israel's candidate for the Foreign Film Oscar, but it had to be withdrawn because not enough of the dialogue was non-English. (Perhaps the most unrealistic aspect of the film, other than a public telephone that inexplicably operates for free, was everybody's fluency in English.)