Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

By Willie Krischke — August 24, 2010

The grass is always greener on the other side of the ocean. This is the lesson Nisreen Faour, a non-religious Palestinian, learns in “Amreeka.”  Her commute to work, which used to take her ten minutes, now takes two hours due to the military checkpoints that have been set up.  She wins the green card lottery that allows her and her son to leave the Middle East for the New Promised Land, but is hestitant to do so because, after all, it is home.  But when her smart-aleck son (Melkar Muallem) gets pulled out at one of the checkpoints and searched because of a snide comment, her mind is made up. They will immigrate to America.

They have a tough time getting through customs.  “Citizenship?” the customs agent asks her.   No, we have none.   We are Palestinian.  “Occupation?”  Yes, for forty years now.    “No…I mean, where do you work?”

That turns out not to be a simple question either.   In Palestine, she was a banker; she worked in banking for 15 years.  In America, the only job she can find is at the White Castle right next to the bank.  She and her son move in with her brother and his family in suburban Illinois; he is a doctor, but finds he is losing patients quickly due to the war in Iraq and public prejudice against people of Arab descent.  His wife (played by Hiam Abass, one of my favorite actresses working these days) is bitter and mean and most of all, homesick.  She would hop on a plane at the first opportunity, if it would take her back to Palestine.  “But you haven’t been there in fifteen years,” Faour argues.   “You don’t know what it’s like.”

But it certainly isn’t easy being a Palestinian immigrant in suburban Illinois, even if you do live in a house that would accommodate three or four families back home.   On Muallem’s first day of school, the teacher immediately puts him on the spot, asking him in front of the class what he thinks about the Israel-Palestine conflict. (Add another to the list of incredibly dumb teachers in the movies.)  He’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut; his cousin, on the other hand, is overflowing with unpopular opinions. It’s ironic to watch this young woman, born and raised in Illinois, go on and on about terrorism as a justified response to oppression while the fresh-off-the-boat immigrant sinks into his seat, just hoping not to get beat up.

“Amreeka” is heavy-handed at times, but is guided by solid performances from Faour and Abass.  While it is certainly topical, it never feels overly political, and moves with a surprisingly light step all throughout. These situations are tragic, but are played for comedy, and there isn’t a hint of anger anywhere.   “This place sucks,”  Muallem moans in the climactic scene, after spending a night in jail for defending his mother from bullies.  “Yes, it sucks,”  she says, “every place sucks.  But we will be strong, and we will not forget who we are.”

While “Amreeka” could be viewed as an indictment of American prejudice, xenophobia and insensitivity–and there are certainly those out there who need to get the message–I think the overarching point is that, for many people, there is no comfortable place.   Sometimes you trade checkpoints and violence for bigotry and ignorance, and do your best to make a home out of wherever you can.   It must take incredible strength.

By Willie Krischke – July 9, 2009

The brilliant and moving Israeli movie “Lemon Tree” begins with a colossal mistake.   The new Israeli Defense Minister (Doron Tavory) moves to a new house right on the line that separates Israel from the Palestinian West Bank.   And if that wasn’t bad enough, right across the fence is a lemon grove that belongs to a dignified Palestinian widow.   As  Tavory and his wife are moving in, his bodyguard notes that the lemon grove presents a security risk, as terrorists or snipers could easily hide in it and quickly escape.   You’d think that would be the kind of thing a Defense Minister might consider before signing the papers on a new house.

The widow is Hiam Abass, and if you never seen her act (in “The Visitor,”  ”Munich,” or “The Nativity Story,”) then you owe it to yourself to see this movie just to learn who she is.   She is a marvel of strength and grief, determination and dignity.   The lemon grove has been in her family for generations; it is more than her livelihood, it is her life.   Her relationship to the land is integral to her relationship to her community, to her past, and to identity as a woman and a widow.

So naturally, when Tavory offers to compensate her for the trees he intends to cut down, she refuses.  Except that she can’t really refuse, because she’s just a poor widow and he’s the Defense Minister.   His men put a fence around her trees and build a guard tower to keep her out.   (It’s a nice touch that the young guard sits in the tower and preps for a test by listening to logic problems; it’s precisely this kind of reasoning that will never solve the conflict between the widow and the Minister, or, for that matter between Palestine and Israel.)  Meanwhile, the trees go uncared for and begin to die.

Abass appeals to the court, and then a higher court.   She hires a lawyer who is very interested in her, but mostly interested in how the case can advance his career.   The wife of the Defense Minister gets angry at her husband, but does nothing to help the poor widow, though it seems she would certainly have the power to do so.   (I think she is supposed to be a sympathetic character, setting up a dichotomy of compassionate and powerless females and ambitious, heartless males, but I didn’t buy it.)  The press gets involved, much to the chagrin of the Defense Minister, who keeps insisting that he’s sorry, but he has no choice  but to cut down the lemon trees.   It is infuriating that he never considers moving, never contemplates a solution that would cost him anything.   He is rich and powerful, and that means he can solve his problems at the expense of the poor and marginalized.

Though it is based on a true story, “Lemon Tree” functions more as a parable than as a realistic story or depiction of the situation in Israel, which is obviously more complicated.   But that need not be a detraction from its power.   We need parables, and director Eran Riklis has a good sense of what to outline, what to pass over, and how to tell a story that will have a universal feel to it.   I was reminded of many things while watching “Lemon Tree,” but perhaps most notably of the Parable of the Persistent Widow (Luke 18) and of the way Native peoples have been treated by the U.S. government.   At the end, the Israeli Court has reached a compromise that they think successfully resolves the issue.   Half of Abass’s trees are pruned down to nubs, and a giant wall is built between her house and Tavory’s.   As she walks along the stumps that used to be her lemon trees, I thought of Native Americans on their reservations.  The solution does nothing more than assuage the guilt felt by the party in power.   It is not a compromise.

Recommended

• if you enjoy movies that play like parables.
• if you are interested in social justice issues, but are tired of watching documentaries.
• if you’ve never seen Hiam Abass.  Or even if you have.

Not Recommended

• if you get frustrated with movies that simplify complex issues to make a point that may not even apply to the current situation.
• if you are rabidly, fervently pro-Israel and can’t abide anyone saying or suggesting anything bad about God’s People.
• if you need happy endings.

In “The Visitor,” Jenkins is an economics professor who has lost interest in his life.   His wife has passed away.  He teaches the same course each year, hardly bothering to change the date on the syllabus.  He is forced to go to a conference in New York to read a paper he didn’t write.   He finds an immigrant couple squatting in his apartment: a lively but polite Syrian(Haaz Sleiman) and his more reserved and nervous Senegali girlfriend(Danai Gurira.)   Sleiman plays the Djembe in clubs; Gurira sells jewelry at a street market.    When it is clear that they have nowhere to go, Jenkins (because he’s an introvert but not a misanthrope) allows them to stay with him.

Jenkins is intrigued by the Sleiman’s drum.  His wife was a classical pianist, and he’s been trying to learn to play the piano since she passed, but it isn’t taking.   The Djembe seems an odd instrument for a middle aged, middle class, white man to pick up, so he’s a bit skittish about his interest.   Sleiman isn’t, and enthusiastically begins to teach him how to play, takes him to drum groups, and give him CDs to listen to.   And, wouldn’t you know it, an unlikely friendship develops.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bff6L_jZhuY]

But just when “The Visitor” starts to feel like old hat (Young Poor Foreigner Teaches Old Rich White Guy How to Have Soul) it takes a turn into contemporary politics.   Well, not politics exactly.   Sleiman and Gurira are illegal, and Sleiman gets picked up by police in the subway.   And throughout the rest of the movie, Jenkins, Gurira and Sleiman’s mother(Hiam Abass) visit him, fight for him, and try to understand what is happening with him.

This ought to feel terribly, frantically political, akin to last year’s “Rendition.”   But McCarthy keeps his focus on the characters and their subtly evolving relationships.   Gurira and Abass are both illegal as well, so they can’t visit Sleiman in the correctional facility.   Jenkins can, and takes him letters they have written, which he holds up to the glass partition and looks away while Sleiman reads them.   Sleiman asks him if he is practicing his drum, and he beats out a rhythm on the table.   Every last second of this movie is about people, not politics.   A romance begins – slowly, uncertainly – to bloom between Jenkins and the beautiful Abass; she cooks him supper and he takes her to see a Broadway show.
The politics of “The Visitor” are clear, but quiet, like its characters.   Simply put, there are places in the world where people can disappear for saying, thinking, or writing the wrong thing.   When that happens, their families often flee to safer countries, like America – land of the free.   It goes without saying that they don’t have the proper paperwork .    Before 9/11, they could mostly just fly under the radar.  But since then, they often find themselves living under the same threats they fled from – imprisoned for no crime, incommunicado, moved from facility to facility at random and with no warning, and barely able to defend themselves or even find out what they’re charged with, besides being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Everything about “The Visitor” is internal, methodical, and muted.   I was completely absorbed while watching it, and marveled at how McCarthy presented the viewer with a character’s potential choices – or lack of them – with the same rhythm and rate at which they are presented to the characters.   But I can see how this movie might feel boring to some.   It follows its own trajectory.  There is no climax, no resolution, hardly any “key scenes” or memorable moments.  Everything evolves slowly, and in such a way that it feels inevitable.   This might be the movie’s weakness, or its greatest strength.

Recommended

• for fans of “The Station Agent,” though this is not nearly as funny.
• For anyone who agrees that generally, the best acting in most movies is done by the character actors.
• For people with acute attention spans, willing to let a movie pull you in quietly.

Not Recommended

• to the easily distracted or bored.
• To anyone going through an immigration crisis at the moment.  (I have a friend going through this right now.   I can’t imagine what it’s like to be her.)
• To minutemen, or anyone who really thinks all the illegals in our country should be trucked out immediately, no questions asked or answered.