Tribeca Review: Strangers
Directed by: Guy Nattiv, Erez Tadmor
Written by: Guy Nattiv, Erez Tadmor
Cast: Lion Levo, Lubna Azabel, Mila Dekker, Abdallah El Akal
out of 5 stars
A tender cross-cultural love story that nearly founders under the weight of contrived polemics and Mideast politics, “Strangers” explores the fiery romance between the Israeli Eyal (Liron Levo) and Rana (Lubna Azabal), a Palestinian émigré living in Paris. Directors Guy Nattiv and Erez Tador choose an imaginative opening — the 2006 World Cup Soccer championships that took place in Berlin, where a rather improbable mix-up involving identical backpacks brings Ayal and Rana together, both in the city to watch the games.
Their interaction follows the genre playbook from tentative flirtation to passionate affair, but the setting and their natural chemistry makes spending time with them pleasurable. After the games, Rana abruptly insists that she and Ayal cut their ties, return to their separate worlds and never see other again. Ayal, however, won’t have any of it, and travels to Paris to reunite with Rana, who we realize is the single mother of an ailing young boy, Rashid (Abdallah El Akal). Their reunion is difficult — Rana wastes no time alienating Ayal upon his arrival — and it’s marred by Israel’s sudden 2006 war with Lebanon. That conflict and the anti-Israeli sentiment that it incites plays tidily into Eyal and Rana’s separate points of view, leading to clichéd arguments and tensions that overwhelm the character nuances that we enjoyed earlier on.
It feels far too pat, but even more damaging is the script’s portrayal Rana as a devoted mother sensitive to Rashid (who she calls “my soul” at one point), while asking us to accept her as a freewheeling young woman given to dropping her responsibilities so she can attend soccer games, enjoy flings, and party it up at dance clubs. The two sides simply do not gel, and the net effect of these incompatible traits, along with Azabel’s shrill performance, cancel out any sympathy we may have for her. Rana’s also got complicating immigration issues, which force her to ask Ayal’s help in taking care of Rashid. Of course, Ayal and Rashid get along famously, and, predictably enough, you’ve suddenly got one big (okay, small) happy Israeli-Palestinian family. There’s not much here to take with you, nothing of the emotional or poetic caliber of, say, “Hiroshima mon Amour,” a movie that “Strangers” — however inadvertently — harks back to. But the movie’s heart is in the right place and for all its tender early moments, it’s an appealing enough festival selection, that I think may have minor arthouse play in the States.
