Film explores culture, conflict among Jewish, Palestinian Israelis

BY CATE MARQUIS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHT

The perhaps unlikely combination of a Jewish Israeli director adapting a Palestinian Israeli’s bestselling novel yielded a film so good that it was named best picture (and won other awards) at the 2021 Ophir Awards (the Israeli Oscars) and became Israel’s official entry for the 2022 Academy Awards.

The wry, satiric drama “Let It Be Morning” is directed by Eran Kolirin, whose film “The Band’s Visit” about an Egyptian band stranded in an Israeli village was an international hit and was made into a Broadway musical that played the Fox Theater in 2020.

“Let It Be Morning” mixes absurdist humor, social commentary and the drama of a dysfunctional family.

It has a St. Louis connection as well: The author of the novel on which the film is based is Sayed Kashua, who is a doctoral candidate in comparative literature at Washington University.

The main character is Sami (Alex Bakri), a rather smug Israeli Palestinian who thinks he has escaped the small Palestinian village where he grew up, finding success working for an Israeli software company in Jerusalem (and cheating on his Palestinian wife with a Jewish co-worker).

Sami has reluctantly returned to his home village for his brother’s wedding but plans to leave as soon as possible.

At the wedding, he is distracted, disconnected from people and dodging his childhood friend Abed (Ehab Salami), who hasn’t done so well in life. Periodically, Sami wanders off to text or call his girlfriend.

The wedding is supposed to end with the release of white doves, a symbol of peace, but the doves refuse to leave their cage and, when pushed out, refuse to fly. Comedy and symbolism combine that way throughout this smart, dryly funny but ultimately human drama.

When Sami, his wife, Mira (Juna Suleiman), and young son Adam (Maruan Hamdan) finally start to drive back home, they are shocked to discover that the Israeli military has closed the road to Jerusalem. The guards offer no reason for the closure, and Sami, who has to give a work presentation in the morning, tries to persuade them to let him through, offering his Israeli ID, but they refuse. Driving back to his parents’ home, he discovers cell phone service is cut off, so he can’t call work.

Soon, the village is in lockdown. No one is allowed in or out, including delivery trucks. Then electricity is cut off.

During the first day of lockdown, the villagers, who are all Israeli citizens, rail at the guards at the roadblock. But soon they return home to wait things out.

Sami is forced to confront his own life and long-buried issues, as well as dysfunction in his family. Others in his family and the village confront their own issues. The village council is little help and some people quickly take advantage of the situation.

Residents begin to speculate that illegal workers, Palestinians in the village without Israeli papers, might be to blame for the lockdown and decide to round them up and turn them in.

Sami’s father Tarek (Salim Daw) is angered by the villagers’ lack of commu-

‘Let It Be Morning’

The film will be shown Sunday, Feb. 12, at the Hi Pointe Theater by the nonprofit Cinema St. Louis, and then will open Friday, Feb. 17, at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinema.

In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.

nity, recalling protests back in his day. The villagers are so divided, Sami says, that “you can’t even get two people together to play backgammon.”

As supplies dwindle and the lockdown drags on, personal and community conflicts surface. And those white doves at the start of the film? They still refuse to fly.

Director Kolirin was surprised when Kashua approached him to adapt his novel for the screen, a novel that Kolirin describes as a “beautiful, funny, cruel, absurd and sad tale.” It was a bold idea to cut across the lines of Jewish and Palestinian Israeli culture to reach the human heart in both. A risky one, too, considering the polarized state of things,

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Little Nick had to pull on these scratchy, rough, formal pants, then use a zipper and button, not just yank on some elastic waist gym shorts. It wasn’t easy. Nick was so annoyed, so frustrated, so unhappy with these pants that he used all of the worst of the worst bad words he knew at one time, screaming, “I hate these stupid shut up pants!”

Yes Nick, hate, stupid and shut up are the very bad words.

My friend Stacey needed new wiper blades, and she was determined to change them herself. She went to an auto parts store and bought new ones. Back outside she went to her car and successfully removed the old ones. But despite her best efforts she couldn’t get the new blades on.

She tried several times. That’s when she realized this wasn’t her car … so she left. You’ve seen one silver sedan, you’ve seen them all. And this silver sedan with its wiper blades on its hood was probably quite a surprise for the actual owner.

My favorite story that isn’t mine belongs to my friend Louis Goldman. Back in the days before voicemail, he called a client and left a message with the secretary, a lovely older woman who had just started working there. Louis didn’t get a call back.

A few days later he called again, spoke with the secretary and left another message with her. Still no return call.

Louis then went to the client’s office to figure out the issue and asked, “Is everything OK? I left a couple messages with your new secretary and never heard back.”

The client rolled his eyes, looked through his paper messages, stopped on one, and said, ‘Ah, you must be Moose Goldstein.’ ”

My sweet, sweet husband always remembers to include a greeting card for every birthday and holiday. He takes his time reading them to pick the perfect one.

Except one year for Mother’s Day when he got his mom, Zelda, a card that read, “You’re like a mother to me.” He didn’t realize this is the card you get an aunt or female figure of importance who plays a major role in your life.

The best is that Zelda responded, “Jeff, I’m not like your mother, I am your mother.”

And if that’s not funny enough, when asked about it moments ago Jeff said, “I still don’t understand the problem.”

Jeff is so funny I think I might have him take over this column next time.

Columnist Amy Fenster Brown is married to Jeff and has two teenage sons, Davis and Leo. She volunteers for several Jewish notfor-profit groups.

Fenster Brown is an Emmy Award-winning TV news writer and counts time with family and friends, talking and eating peanut butter among her hobbies.