In the AJW this week, Michael Fox reviews Zaytoun, the new film from director Eran Riklis.
Zaytoun is set “at the height of Lebanon’s civil war and before the Israeli invasion, and pairs a 12-year-old Palestinian lad with a downed Israeli fighter pilot on the outskirts of Beirut,” writes Fox. “Fleeing together to the Israeli border, they discover that trust, empathy and loss trump political differences.
“Audiences nowadays—Jewish and otherwise—are more pessimistic and less inclined to embrace a hopeful view of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence than they were in 1991. If they look closely, though, they’ll see that Riklis and Palestinian screenwriter Nader Rizq aren’t peddling a feel-good fantasy but are pragmatists with a sobering view of history.
“Zaytoun, which is by turns insightful, contrived and emotionally involving, opens Oct. 25 at the Lagoon Cinema in Uptown.”
Here is the film trailer:
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