Sufat Chol (2016) is an Israeli movie that was shown in the U.S. with the title Sand Storm. It was written and directed by Elite Zexer.
The film takes place in an area of Israel where the Bedouins live. (Truth in reviewing--I didn't know there were Bedouins in Israel. However, they make up 3.5% of the population.) The film is in Arabic, and no Jewish Israelis appear in it. There is one mention of houses being bulldozed, but that's the only sense that there's a majority population outside the village.
Lamis Ammar plays Layla, a intelligent young woman, who is in love with "someone from a different tribe." That's not OK.
Ruba Blal portrays Jalila, Layla's mother. Hitham Omari is Suliman, Layla's father and Jalila's husband.
Matters are a little confusing in the beginning, as a pickup truck arrives at a home. The load in the pickup truck is a new bed. It signals to us that Suliman has taken a second wife. The bed is their wedding bed.
We know that, for Muslims, having more than one wife is normative. However, as the plot develops, it's clear that other matters that are considered normative appear unacceptable by our standards.
In fact, the rules and restrictions of the village appeared medieval to me. I considered whether this was an Israeli propaganda film, showing to the world how primitive the Bedouins are. However, a close friend, who is knowledgeable about these matters, assured me that this is the reality of Bedouin life in Israel.
The restrictions the mother and daughter face are disturbing and grim. However, that's what makes up the plot of the film.
This movie worked well on the small screen. It has an anemic IMDb rating of 6.8. I wondered why this important movie had such a low rating. When I checked the demographics it became clearer. Men rated it 6.7, while females rated it 7.0. (As usual, male raters outnumbered female raters. In this case, it was two to one.)
I think even 7.0 is too low for this movie. I rated it 9.
