What would you do if your Chinese house cleaner urgently told you the moment you came through the door that she had to leave her six-year-old son with you for "one hour," and then never came back? That's the problem that confronts El Al stewardess Miri (Mili Avital) as she returns to her Tel Aviv apartment in "Noodle," a film that is making the rounds of Israeli cinemas this fall. The phrase "one hour," the only words the house cleaner knows in English to plead for Miri's help, sets the movie on its course, examining how language barriers can actually bring people together. Throughout the film, alternative communication takes over when words fail. When Miri discovers the mother has been deported, she is flummoxed. Twice widowed and childless, she hasn't a clue how to care for this silent six year old (BaoQi Chen). She enlists the aid of her sister and soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law, and they try to cope with the inability of the youngster, nicknamed "Noodle," to understand either Hebrew or English. In fact, when spoken to, he answers with the only Hebrew sentence he knows - "Ani yeled Sini," (I am a Chinese boy) - no matter the question. But director Ayelet Menahemi, 44, whose film career can be charted from 1988 with the making of "Big Girl/Crow" to last year's effort, "Zmani," shows us that language barriers are no obstacle to communication. Through sign language and pantomime, we watch how Noodle endears himself to his "foster family," especially in a dinner scene in which he teaches the others the proper way to eat, well, noodles. When Miri buys a Hebrew-Chinese dictionary, we feel the crescendo of her commitment to Noodle, followed by a promise to reunite him with his mother, even though that will entail a very unconventional entry past Beijing immigration officials. All this, without being able to understand a word of each other's language. The ability to communicate with words unspoken reaches its peak when the child bows his head and utters only the expletive "Oh," when he understands, through Miri's pantomime, that one of her late husbands was a fighter pilot who crashed. Their interaction proves you really need so few shared words to establish connections or communicate. In tandem with "Noodle," which records the plight of a stranger in a strange land, is "The Band's Visit," whose plot revolves around eight Egyptian police officers, members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Orchestra, who find themselves stranded in a desolate, southern Israeli desert town. In the film, which was a runaway winner at the 2007 Ophir Awards (Israel's Oscars), where it garnered eight awards, including best film, actor, actress and director, the band has come to play a concert in Petah Tikva, but due to language difficulties, the musicians end up in the fictional town of Beit Hatikva instead (in Arabic, "p" is pronounced as "b"). This graceless transit stop is a long way from bustling Petah Tikva, east of Tel Aviv, established in 1878, the first major settlement in the Zionist era. It turns out that the Egyptians' ride never showed up to meet them at the airport, so they set out on their own, ending up in this woebegone town with only their powder blue uniforms, instruments, military-style discipline and old-world charm to keep them even-keeled. Throughout, they maintain a ramrod-stiff probity as well as a disarming humility. In short, they are very likable fellows, and they win over the non-Arabic-speaking locals. Fortunately, they end up at a restaurant where their tale of woe falls on sympathetic ears. Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), whose eating establishment is Beit Hatikva's center of gossip, politics and just hanging out, takes the initiative to secure them lodgings for the night. Dina has a great big heart. She is also is a great big flirt, quickly sizing up the band for the one who will be the center of her attentions. She settles on the band leader Tawfiq (Sasson Gabai), whom she affectionately calls "general." According to Director Eran Kolirin, the screenplay called for more dramatic tension involving the part of Dina, but he eschewed the classic restraint for an in-your-face directness. The relationship between Dina and Tawfiq, together with several other encounters between Egyptian guests and Israeli hosts, form the heart and backbone of the story. Neither group knows the other's language, but they get along with their rudimentary English. There is much comedy as well as poignancy in all the evolving relationships. Attempts at gap-bridging occur when Khaled, the good-looking violinist, plays Cyrano de Bergerac by whispering into new-found friend Papi's ear how to court a woman, at the unlikely venue of a roller rink. At the home of another Israeli family, three Egyptians and their hosts break the linguistic ice by belting out an Arabic- and Hebrew-accented English rendition of "Summertime." Kolirin, 34, in his first feature film, also includes moments of miscommunication, such as the band leader's futile attempt to make himself understood to the telephone information operator, and a cat-and-mouse ballet between a band member and a local over who will answer a ringing public telephone, each certain that it's for him. By evening's end, most of the communication problems have been taken care of, and there's even a little hanky-panky, although it's not what you'd expect. The movie also pokes fun at the genre of American horror films in which stranded people find themselves in an eerie town at the mercy of a crazed citizenry. Kolirin denies he had a great theme in mind. He was more interested in creating characters who had personal connections to him. He identifies with Gabai's character, Tawfiq the bandleader, whose life is "a contradiction between his attraction to art and music, which demands great expression, and his turbulent interior which inhibits his ability to feel." It is unfortunate, although it comes as no surprise, that the goodwill oozing forth from "The Band's Visit" will not be appreciated in Egypt. Organizers of the Cairo International Film Festival, which runs from late November to early December, decided to drop the film due to a sex scene between Israeli and Egyptian characters. The Egyptian Film Actors Guild also succeeded in pressuring this month's Abu Dhabi Film Festival to yank "The Band's Visit" from its program. Abu Dhabi would have been the first Arab venue to screen an Israeli film. The less you understand another's language, the more effort you make to bridge the gap seems to be the message behind Noodle's and Miri's monosyllables and Tawfiq's and Dina's broken English. But the flip side also appears to be true. In "My Father My Lord," speaking the same language in no way guarantees that you're "speaking the same language." The story, set in Mekor Baruh, an ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood, tells the tale of countless lost opportunities to make connections between a father and son, which finally ends in tragedy. The father (Assi Dayan) is a rabbi who attends to his official functions at the expense of his own family's needs. The only way the son can see his father is to hide in the synagogue rafters and listen to his lessons. In one case, the son Menahem (Eilan Grif), "approaching bar mitzva age," is called to the father's study, but falls asleep waiting to be granted audience. At another meeting, the son is unsure if his father is addressing him or praying. One language, but it is a one-way street. From the softest nuances to the most dictatorial commands, the father steadily builds a wall between the two. The Tora juggernaut conquers the natural world of wonder. Youthful questions about dogs having souls, or why a bird must be shooed away from her nest, or the definition of idolatry, are answered by the same "That's what the Tora teaches." Without revealing the ending, the story line centers on a family outing to the Dead Sea, which reflects the film's Hebrew title, "Hofshat Hakayitz" (Summer Vacation), in a most bitter and ironic manner. As they near the sea, the mother (Sharon Hacohen Bar) wraps a ribbon around Menahem's head to keep his kippa from falling off while the father grills him on the proper prayer for approaching a body of water. She broods over her son as he makes his first visit to the men's beach, instead of remaining with her on the women's side. Less a story of simple negligence, it is more a "Sacrifice of Isaac" parable that goes horribly wrong. Just as in the biblical drama, God demands the son's life as a sign of love from Dayan's character, also named Abraham. Similarly, each Abraham was asked to give up his only son. But then the biblical and modern narratives diverge. The ram caught in the thicket becomes the biblical sacrifice, but no last-minute reprieve takes place here. Is the tragic ending a horror that could have been avoided or is it simply God's will? The father immediately rids himself of personal responsibility and retreats into the comfort of "It's God's will." It was time for minha (the afternoon prayers) and the father's rush to join the minyan prevented him from keeping tabs on the boy. The mother, however, has no doubts as to her husband's culpability. After the rabbi's first lesson in the synagogue following the shiva (mourning period), he is confronted by his wife, who vents her anger loudly but wordlessly, making her rebuke all the more damning. It is the only moment in the film where the mother's point of view trumps the father's. This film, with few spoken words, and long silences, is such a scathing indictment of ultra-Orthodox life that the viewer wonders whether he hasn't missed something. Perhaps there is a point of view that justifies the outcome. Life can't be all that bleak in the Orthodox community. But for Director David Volach, 37, it is. He is one of 20 children born to an ultra-Orthodox family in Jerusalem, but turned his back on his community from his late teens, seeking out the secular life that Tel Aviv's Bohemian Florentin quarter provided. His first cinematic effort, "My Father My Lord" won the Best Narrative Feature Award at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. The audiences in Jerusalem reacted strongly. "It's a black world they live in," said one film-goer. Another added, "It's nothing new. We know that this is the way they are." Yet another felt "contempt for the whole haredi [ultra-Orthodox] world." "If I were the mother, I would have killed him (the father)," said an exasperated viewer. But, the most poignant response came from two film-goers who sat directly behind me at the Jerusalem Theater. During the screening, I could feel and hear their uncontrollable sobbing. When I asked them afterwards what their opinions of the film were, they responded that they were bereaved mothers too overcome with emotion to speak. The film sweeps you away, daring you to watch. The audience's incremental knowledge of the climax has them sitting on tenterhooks, worrying at every plot twist if this will be the tragic moment. If any comfort can be taken from the film, it is perhaps the strength of the father's faith that steels him through his own shortcomings. But it's a stretch for any moviegoer who believes in personal responsibility. These three films, which run the gamut from heartwarming to heartrending, all deal with the role of language, either its efficacy in bridging gaps with foreigners or its part in preventing understanding between members of the same family. The films refer to our age-old conflicts, i.e., whether to be an open society, amenable to exotic cultures in all their complexity; or to be its opposite, to insulate oneself in a world of Jewish religious law. Even though no breakthroughs were reported, nor apostasies recorded, we can still appreciate the honing and packaging of what we already know to a high point of cinematic refinement. These two points of view - open vs. closed society - so completely capture one of the basic rifts in Israeli society they could be used as resource material for a college-level course on Introduction to Israel 101. The films won't solve our problems, but they continue to give us tantalizing alternatives of peaceful coexistence in a land of eternal intolerance.
