“Tel Aviv on Fire” — go — now!
You wont’ just love it, you’ll want a sequel!
Don’t let your politics (or lack thereof) or the “foreign” stamp on this film stop you. It won’t matter if you can’t speak Hebrew or Arabic or French, you will still understand every character and every minute of this year’s Seattle International Film Festival winner.
“Tel Aviv on Fire” is set in the seemingly intractable Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and superficially that’s what it’s about, a deliciously unexpected faux drama, real comedy about how much we’re alike, whether we want to admit it or not.
The politically woke folks in Seattle may have accepted it expecting a political statement, but that’s not what it is or why it won or why you should see it. It won because it’s an incredibly well executed film, surprising, subtly written and convincingly acted. That’s why you should see it.
Samah Zouabi’s screenplay stitches together multiple levels of meaning and reality. It is “The Last Action Hero” of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, a show within a show within a wider reality, and Zouabi brings it off so seamlessly even critics miss the multiple meanings.
“Tel Aviv on Fire” is the show within the show. It’s the film and the subject of the film. It’s a contemporary soap opera about life in Israel, and a period…
