The Band's Visit (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret)
Review by Zachary Keith Parker
Eran Kolirin's written and directed project, The Band's Visit (“Bikur Ha-Tizmoret”), makes the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra's quotidian visit to the rural, derelict Beit Hatikva a peculiarly meaningful experience. Kolirin's film watches characters in a forgettable situation, but highlights the minor exchanges between individuals. These exchanges, ranging from personal desires to private confessions, create an atmosphere of kindness, unusually affecting as it is usually ignored in our own lives.
In their usual police uniforms, the orchestra, led by Tewfiq “General” Zacharaya (Sasson Gabai) arrives in Israel from Egypt for a performance, finding no one to meet them or any help. Trying to reach Petah Tiqva, the orchestra instead arrives in Beit Hatikva.
Waiting there until the next day's bus, the band imposes upon the hospitality of the blasé restaurant owner, Dina (Ronit Elkabetz) for food and shelter for the night. Dina sends part of the band with Itzik and Papi, taking the mature, restrained General and charmingly handsome, Haled (Saleh Bakri).
As an easily frustrated, but dignified gentleman, the General holds the suave, obstreperous Haled responsible for their destination mix-up, which produces tension between them when visiting with the sensual, self-confident Dina.
While Dina takes the quiet General to dinner, Haled tags along with Papi and his “gloomy” date to the skating rink. Meanwhile, the second-in-command, Simon, goes with two other band members to Itzik's house where Itzik's wife, Iris, tries to celebrate her birthday uncomfortably in the presence of strangers.
Simon, who desires against the General's plans to conduct a performance considering that this may be one of their last, plays a few measures of his own uncompleted tune. Haled helps Papi to comfort and develop his relationship with “gloomy,” and Simon has a close conversation with Itzik about life.
The exchange between the members of each culture is arrested by the language barrier, causing them to speak bad english in an effort to bridge the culture gap. It is the purblind reason why the Oscars rejected this film: as a foreign film, more than half of the flyspeck amount of dialogue is english. To the film's credit, this language barrier provides Kolirin with the opportunity to tell the story principally not through music, but through movement and distance.
The blocking and camera view in each scene are carefully primed to communicate each character's emotional state. Each frame tells something not only about the characters, but Kolirin uses the blocking and camera view to foreshadow future events. In this way, the film transitions smoothly from scene to scene without the use of much dialogue.
Like music, the composition of notes and the harmonious movement of sounds, Kolirin’s blocking and camera placement gives the film both a depth in character exposition and a sense of visual, not verbal, wit. Kolirin seems to employ music in uniting characters with the physical placement and motion of characters to accent the distance between them.
When the band ridicules Simon’s desire to conduct the orchestra once, he moves outside and plays his unfinished concerto. Haled woos various women with Chet Baker’s “My Funny Valentine.” At Itzik and Iris’s supper table, all of the men lend their discordant voices to belt out Gershwin’s “Summertime.”
When Haled, Papi, and “gloomy” go to the skating rinks, many others dance around them while they sit, three-in-a-frame, to the sound of electronic pop music. In this scene, Haled smoothly shows Papi how to properly woo a woman (who’s sitting right next to them) through his hands.
Simon plays his unfinished concerto a second time for Itzik and Iris, revealing that he began writing it until his wife died, and since then has been unable to complete it. While a few other members play their own instruments, Kolirin wisely saves the final, full performance until the end where it performs a cathartic function.
As another example of Kolirin’s musical and physical composition, the General laments the neglect and disrespect for music in this modern age, inciting Dina to ask to listen to musical quality of the General’s native language. When she asks him what it feels like to conduct an orchestra, he shows her through a simple movement of his arms.
This scene between the General and Dina contributes to part of the resolution, leading to the question of whether or not this night (or their relationship) will end. Other parts of resolution include the fear that their next orchestral performance may be the end of their long career. Another part shows a quiet conversation between Simon and Itzik as they look at Itzik’s child sleeping in the crib. Itzik stands up to leave, and says,
“Maybe this is how your concerto ends, I mean, not a big end, with trumpets and violin. Maybe this is the finish. Just like that. Not sad, not happy, just a small room, a lamp, a bed, a child sleeps, and . . . tons of loneliness.”
Itzik leaves the room, Simon begins to look around, and the camera assumes his viewpoint, looking at the room, the lamp, the bed, and the child sleeping. The child begins to wake up, and Simon turns on the crib mobile, listening to it as the child sleeps.
What happens next does not negate Itzik’s words, but reshapes them with a more hopeful, though similarly melancholic, implication. It's the sort of Christ-inhabited realization that lives with the suffering and plays music to rise above it, accused of living in loneliness but communicates the satisfaction of a higher calling than the rest of the world. These ending scenes all conclude to the tune of a similar concept, with music and acting that narrates this quiet evening better than any impetuous message-preaching.
Unlike familiar narratives following the typical Hollywood plot, The Band's Visit has a more complex structure as it follows characters through different moods on one lonely night. The Band’s Visit differs from the average Hollywood flick like the difference between a dinner with a few friends and a loud party with planned activities respectively.
The film meanders in its execution during the beginning, but once it begins to focus on its characters, the film moves effortlessly without wasting time or depth. The Band’s Visit easily procures a slot in my favorites as one of the top ten films I have seen this year. It may not appeal to the average American viewer, but for those who interested in a humorous character film, The Band’s Visit is not happy, not sad, but a rewarding evening encounter.