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London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Eran Riklis.
Cast: Hiam Abbass, Doron Tavory, Ali Sulimann
Description: Drama based on the true story of a Palestinian widow (Hiam Abbass), who risks losing her beloved lemon tree grove to appease her demanding neighbour, a minister in the Israeli government.
Country: ISR/GER/FR. 2008. 106mins
New neighbours: Hiam Abbass as the desperate widow trying to save her lemon grove
After the extraordinary Waltz With Bashir, one of the best films of the year, comes Eran Riklis's less amazing but still very watchable film about a Palestinian widow who fights the might of the Israeli state to preserve her 50-yearold lemon grove from destruction. Clearly, Israeli cinema is on the up and totally unafraid to expose the injustices that mar the efforts of its government to make peace with the Palestinians.
The grove is due for cutting down because Israel's new defence minister has moved in next door and his security officials deem it a threat to national security.
There's some point to their actions since terrorist incidents are many in the area and anyone could indeed throw a bomb from the grove.
The widow, however, decides to fight and, with the aid of an inexperienced local lawyer, also a Palestinian, just arrived from Russia, goes all the way to the supreme court to complain.
Meanwhile, the defence minister's wife, not getting on too well with her unsympathetic Right-wing husband, begins to feel for the widow, as does the lawyer who incurs the wrath of the local Arab community by mixing a burgeoning friendship with his seemingly hopeless casework.
Riklis has made the film deliberately schematic because, he states, such cases are two-a-penny in Palestine today and their stories need to be told. But its characters are not just symbols; they are very much flesh and blood.
Hiam Abbass as the sad and increasingly desperate widow, Ali Suliman as the much younger lawyer and Rona Lipaz-Michael as the minister's wife are all fine.
Time was when actors in Israeli films tended towards theatricality. Not any more.
Riklis, clearly angry about the political situation but also taking a sly dig at the male chauvinism of both sides, makes an important statement in very human terms.
That's why The Lemon Tree, though quite plainly made, is another feather in the cap of the director who made the equally affecting The Syrian Bride.
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