Ajami

Astonishing that this is a debut feature from two young directors. The film, named for the Jaffa neighborhood where most of it takes place, chronicles the story of several neighborhood residents who tread through life amid rampant crime, strict Arab family structures and rules, clan law, revenge killings, harsh police and racism, and the growing Jewish presence in the neighborhood. It could have easily fallen onto the abundant clichés which generally characterize films that delve on this subject matter - but instead, there are no fingers pointed, no blame set and no far-fetched allegories. The focal point is always on individual human beings, and the injustices and tragedies that constrict their paths.

Ajami is the first full length feature film directed by two young Israelis Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani.

They have produced an extraordinary film which features five separate stories set in Ajami, a poor Arab neighborhood situated in the city of Tel-Aviv/Yafo. The many characters are played mostly by non professionals, i.e. are not working actors, and the result gives a documentary feel to the film. Amazingly the level of acting is very high and ensures that the film is completely believable and absorbing from beginning to end. Perhaps the only drawback is the limited time available to develop each main character. The viewer wants to know more about them and their lives but time is limited.

The film shows a part of Israeli society rarely shown in Israeli films (Arab Moslem and Arab Christian families living in Ajami) and the makers are to be commended for their achievement in showing a rather hidden side of our society.

An interesting film, no doubt heavily influenced by "Traffic" and "Babel" "Ajani" takes 5 or 6 stories and quite brilliantly interweaves them together. The film mostly focuses on the Arab/Israeli conflict, and it's effect on the regular townspeople. It would help if you knew a bit of history (I didn't) to have a better political connection to the stories, but that's OK, the stories make up for it with it's human element. It's a bit confusing to follow for the first bit while you're trying to figure out what the filmmakers are doing, but once you get into it, you get hooked. Contains a twist ending that's both shocking and in an instant, puts more depth into the story. A must see if you're into these types of films. Great work here.

I just saw this at the London Film Festival. Oh, what a treat.

Taking on the fashionable use of related threads and retelling the same narrative from a different angle, this film delivers a bullet tough view of street life and crime around Jaffa.

The audience is sucked into the maelstrom so quickly, that we forget the media view of the great enmity and realise that there are, of course, many smaller ones. While much eventually revolves around Israeli governance, this is not a blame game but a Shakespearean tragedy.

Unlike City of God, the casual viewer is not always given heavy clues about a characters background - and which side of the racial / religious divide they are on. And subtle differences can end up being of major (often fatal) importance. Beware.

This is not a film destined for multiplexes. Its a man's world where women are a distraction. There is no victory for political correctness. But more to the point, we are not given any particular reason to believe that Things Will Get Better.

There is the sensitive kid thrust into a situation that requires more maturity and smarts than normal for his age, there is the couple whose love incurs disapproval because it crosses ethnic lines, there is the authority figure who protects you today but may turn against you tomorrow... the problem is, this movie has two of each of those. The cast of characters is huge and hard to keep track of, the plot is artificially discontinuous, and in short if you want to get the movie straight, you'd better be ready to see it twice. Which you may want to, because the acting is convincing and although the characters are used from time to time to make a clear and didactic sociopolitical point, they win considerable sympathy from the viewer-- without, for the most part, being oversentimentalized.