Two more reviews from Cannes

Ed Lawrenson checks out 'The Band's Visit' and 'My Brother is an Only Child'.

May 25 2007

Debuting in Cannes' Un Certain Regard strand is Israeli writer-director Eran Kolirin's first feature 'The Band's Visit', a low-key but immensely charming movie about a group of Egyptian musicians stranded for a night in an Israeli town. Arriving in Israel from Alexandria to play a gig at a festival of Arab culture, the eight-strong members of an Egyptian police-force wind-and-string band take the wrong bus and end up in a dusty, deadbeat Israeli town. Dressed throughout in their smart, electric-blue uniforms, incongruous against the desert background, the musicians take up an offer of a night's accommodation with two locals.

Focussing on the friendship that develops between bashful band conductor Tewfiq (a wonderfully lugubrious performance by Sasson Gabai) and café owner Dina (played with sly sensuality by Ronit Elkabetz) what follows is a beautifully observed comedy of manners as the Egyptian and Israeli characters get to know one another. Filmed in long, unbroken takes, the minimalist style recalls Kaurismaki, which, combined with some characterful performances, makes for some great comic set-pieces. But behind the poker-faced front, there's real warmth and emotion, notably through the hints that Tewfiq makes to his tragic past. If the film runs the risk of being occasionally twee, it's still cheering to see a movie revolving around Arab-Israeli relations that focuses on hospitality rather than hostility.

Also playing in Un Certain Regard, Daniele Luchetti's 'My Brother is an Only Child' is a less oblique account of tumultuous times. Set in a small town in Italy during the 1960s and '70s, the film depicts the relationship between two brothers, Accio and Manrico, caught up in the political conflicts of Italy's recent past. A wiry, tough-guy drop-out from a seminary, the teenage Accio swaps his faith in Catholicism for support for fascism when he starts hanging out with an older admirer of Il Duce. Pretty soon he's attending black-shirt rallies and goading the local communists, much to the fury of Manrico, a left-wing firebrand played with smouldering charisma by Riccardo Scamarcio.

Capturing the many loud and furious arguments that Accio's political leanings cause in his working-class family, the movie's early section is a spirited blend of 'Amacord' (Fellini's 1973 portrait of the coming of fascism to his boyhood town) and 'This Is England'. Once Accio grows up – with Elio Germano stepping into the adult role, playing the part with wiry, hotheaded impulsiveness – he moves to the left, having fallen for Manrico's liberal girlfriend Francesca (Diane Fleri). Manrico's activism has meanwhile shifted to the extreme left, having joined a Communist cell involved in an armed struggle against the state.

In its unabashed reference to recent Italian history 'My Brother' recalls Marco Tullio Giordana's epic 'The Best of Youth', which also revolved around two ideologically opposed brothers. But this is a glossier, more audience-friendly affair, that is as concerned with Accio's coy crush on the beguiling Francesca as it is with changing political times. There are plenty of broad-brush but effective jokes at the expense of Accio and Manrico's fanaticism – the Communist version of Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' sung at a student rally is a hilarious send-up of '70s political correctness. But it's in the relationship between the two siblings – warm, poignant, beautifully played by Germano and Scamarcio – that the film impresses. Sweet and soft as a slice of panetone, 'My Brother is an Only Child' is exemplary family melodrama of the kind the Italians do so effortlessly.

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