Jaffa
Jaffa
| 11 October 2009 (USA)
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In the city of Jaffa; a young girl plans to run away with her secret lover, when a tragedy forever changes the course of their lives. Jaffa is a mixed Arabic - Jewish seaside city near Tel Aviv, where Reuven Wolf (Moni Moshonov) has a garage for repairing cars. His wife Ossi (Ronit Elkabetz), a vain, self-centered woman, just makes everybody's life difficult. The couple's daughter, Mali Wolf (Dana Ivgy), has secretly fallen in love with her childhood friend, the young Toufik (newcomer Mahmud Shalaby), a hard-working youth who has come as a helping hand to his Israeli-Arab father Hassan, a long-time mechanic working for Reuven.

Reviews
Cinish Narayanan

The realism. The complexity of the plot and in spite of the complexity, the movie had good integrity. Amazing acting. Sat through rooted to my seat as if I was watching a thriller and I can't even remember which thriller. The love. Most of the characters are very mature and portray largeness of heart. Inspite, there are certain differences that you just can't break. These get built into the psyche purely based on your circumstance. The racial hostility between a jew and an arab makes sense to a jew and an arab but not to an Indian. The actors. There were so many actors who have done excellent excellent work. The Arab, the nonchalance with which he performs, he almost looks like he strayed into the camera field without knowing. The way he comes out of jail and his expression changes as he sees his brothers. None of the theatrics, just a smile. The father has done a great job. The mother. The sister. The brother - every one. To me, there is no actor in the movie except may be the Arab's mother and sister. The direction is excellent too. I think most of the movie is shot in low lighting. The setting is also very dry. The movie felt so real, It could pass off as a documentary.However, there were challenging shots for actors to perform too. It was great story telling - uncomplicated technique. The viewer is given full time to appreciate the situation. It is not like those Hollywood movies where one wacky dialogue you miss , you miss the plot and then you go back and admire - oh what a tricky way to convey. Nonsense. This one was direct. Dil Se. You can feel the warmth of the relationships in spite of the fact that no elaborate situation has been built artificially to convey this

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vivarto

Leftist Israelis make up this fantasies. They invent a fake reality of Arab - Israeli love and understanding. In this respect this movie is just like the the "Egyptian Band". In reality in Jaffa nobody calls Israeli Arabs "Palestinians" both Jews and Arabs refer to them as "Arabs".The marriages between Arabs and Jews are rare, and only extremely rare survive beyond just a few years.The hope that this movie is trying to instill in the hearts of the naive viewers is false.In summary: a tragic waste of talent to make such a false movie.

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benbree

Wow! This is an excellent movie and does a great job of demonstrating love through all sorts of challenges. I really enjoyed the performance by Ronit Elkabetz as I have seen her in "The Band's Visit". It was fun to watch. There was also a great performance by Dana Ivgy, who portrayed Mali Wolf. She appeared so innocent and believable as the daughter who falls for a Palestinian worker and decides to keep it a secret from her family - even after becoming pregnant.While I have no idea if it represented the relationships between Jews and Palestines, I really hope that these type of relationships happen each and every day in their world. There is a chance for peace!!

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Seemp deHond

For once let's just separate the politics from the movie reviews for once when reviewing titles from anywhere in the middle east or war zones. This is a typical love story as they are made all over the world and.... boy is it worth watching.When the spoiled and jealous son of Reuvens body shop/garage provokes one of the mechanics Toufik one time to many all lives involved are forced to change. Toufik and the daughter of the owner Mali have their own secrets and over time things can no longer be hidden.It's a solid love story, drama. Well acted, well done. No big political issues or statements here. Just a very solid drama, well told, well acted with likable characters. Thats good enough already without political statement.

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