Film

Here’s irony for you: When Israel submitted The Band’s Visit as its Oscar submission for the Foreign Language Film award, the Academy rejected it on the grounds that too much of the dialogue is in English. But this gentle movie is about Egyptians and Israelis building tentative cultural bridges, something they can only do in the one language they share, English. The setup is simple: The police department band of Alexandria has been sent to Israel to play at the opening of a new Arab arts center. No one meets them at the airport, and through a bit of miscommunication, they end up taking a bus to the wrong town.

The next bus isn’t due until the following morning and there’s no hotel, so the band ends up relying upon the kindness of the locals. Café owner Dina (Elkabetz, wonderfully wry and world-weary) engages in a mild flirtation with the band’s reserved, slightly pompous leader, Tawfiq (Gabai, who somehow makes his mustache convey sadness), and they reveal bits of their lives to each other. The rest of the band has a similarly educational night. Very little happens, and the mood is one of quiet understatement. It isn’t dazzling and it won’t solve the problems in the Middle East, but at the miniaturist level of its ambitions, it’s perfectly effective.