Amos Gitai's latest film, A Tramway in Jerusalem, opens with a title card showing the time, 5:02 a.m., and then shifts to a woman, Achinoam Nini (aka Noa), singing a lilting, operatic tune in extreme close-up as she rides the light rail. Right then and there, we are clued in to the essential inauthenticity of this film — the tram doesn't actually start running until 5:30. Is this an important detail? No, not really. But it's indicative of the feel of the film, which looks at Jerusalem from the outside in, full of preconceived and inaccurate notions of the city. Gitai is a filmmaker who has something important in common with Jerry Lewis: they love him in France – while at home, his reputation is less than stellar. Probably the best-known Israeli filmmaker around the world, his movies tend to play as if they were made by someone who has learned everything he knows about Israel from looking at tourist posters and reading the most intransigent left-wing screeds. The film, which is a plotless series of vignettes starring the finest actors in Israel as well as some big names from abroad, is actually one of Gitai's better films and highlights his talent for getting foreign stars to play in his movies – Natalie Portman starred in Free Zone, Jeanne Moreau in Later (aka One Day You'll Understand) and Juliette Binoche in Disengagement, to name just a few. The latest star to find his way to into a Gitai film is Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Quantum of Solace), who has two main scenes: one where he lies on the tramway floor, his arms wrapped around a handsome child (presumably his son), as they listen raptly to a man playing the oud, and the other in which the child, grinning from ear to ear, hangs on Amalric's every word as he reads a passage from Flaubert's memoirs about a journey to Jerusalem. Now, maybe your kid will listen entranced to an oud recital or the memoirs of a 19th century novelist, but based on just about every child I've ever known, I'd say these aren't the two most realistic scenes in the film. Unfortunately, most of the scenes with local actors strike equally false notes. A group of yeshiva students board the tram and discourse, mostly in Yiddish, on that famous and enigmatic passage from the Torah that says you should send the mother bird away from the nest before you take her chicks. I know about this much-debated passage not from Torah study but from seeing other Israeli movies about the ultra-Orthodox – it seems to mesmerize filmmakers. But this scene strikes another false note. I'm not saying that yeshiva students don't discuss Torah during their commute – clearly they must, sometimes. But in 30-plus years of taking public transportation in the capital, I've never overheard a conversation remotely like this. The yeshiva students I've overheard usually talk about getting pizza or going to hear their favorite bands, like any other students when they get out of class. Every few minutes, the characters change and we see a different scene that supposedly represents life on the light rail, but even the secular characters we observe, whom, presumably, Gitai should know a bit better, have a by-the-numbers quality. A stunning young woman (Yuval Scharf) confides in an older friend (Keren Mor), about an affair she is having. The older woman gets off at her stop and a priest (Italian actor Pippo Delbono) sits down next to the young woman, touching her inappropriately and reciting a philosophical monologue. A married couple argue about her infidelity. Another couple, who espouse a stereotypically militaristic view of Israel, berate Amalric for not being sufficiently pro-Israeli, even though he can't stop talking about how much he loves the country. In a scene that seems to have captivated foreign viewers most of all, Hana Laslo, the actress who won a Best Actress Award at Cannes for Gitai's Free Zone, wearing a blonde wig and speaking Yiddish, does a cliched Jewish mother number as she embarrasses her adult son by talking about why he shouldn't be single. The one scene stood that out to me as having some core reality – and which was actually intriguing – was one in which two young women, one Palestinian and one Israeli, talk about their confusing mix of nationalities. The Palestinian, who has never lived abroad, has a Dutch passport because of a previous marriage, while the Israeli also has multiple identities. Their easy rapport almost suggests a same-sex attraction as they bond and present a united front to a suspicious soldier. Several other scenes of Arabs and Israelis, including one with a very glamorous Lamis Ammar, the star of the Sandstorm, have little impact and certainly don't dispel any cliches. Gitai has chosen to use the light rail to look at Jerusalem with a heightened, operatic reality – underscored by the opening song – rather than from a realistic point of view, and that's his choice as director. But Jerusalem is a truly fascinating city and it's true that a complex mix of characters meet up on the light rail. After decades here, I still often find myself surprised by the secrets and contradictions I discover. But A Tramway in Jerusalem plays like the work of a man who has barely spent an afternoon getting to know the place. That's a lost opportunity, because in Jerusalem, truth is always stranger – and more interesting – than fiction. With Mathieu Amalric, Hana Laslo, Lamis Ammar, Pippo Delbono, Yuval Scharf. 94 minutes. Hebrew title: Rakevet Kala. In Hebrew, Arabic, French, Italian, Yiddish and German. Check with theaters for subtitle information.
