New Europe Competition review - DANCING ARABS by Eran Riklis

A young Arab finds a new identity in the midst of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in Dancing Arabs by Eran Riklis. The film was screened in the New Europe Competition of the 22nd Febiofest - Prague International Film Festival.

 

Dancing Arabs, which is also known by the simplified and rather unflattering title A Borrowed Identity, is an Israeli production that on a superficial level seems designed to carry a comfortable message of tolerance and integration, but conceals and treasures a darker and provocative side which relentlessly surfaces as it progresses. It is made at a time when tension between Israel and Palestine is still extremely high, but takes place between the end of the eighties and the start of the nineties.

 

Despite its ambition and overall fascinating nature, the new film by Eran Riklis is rather ambivolent, and doesn't feel as non-judgemental as the audience might initially be inclined to think. The story is driven by leading character Eyad (Tawfeek Barhom), a young Palestinian boy whose precocious intelligence inspires his politically active father to finance his education in the Jewish community. Once there, after initial struggles to fit in, his new found friendships and a culturally dangerous and frowned upon relationship with a Jewish girl almost naturally distance him from the culture that he was brought up in and - as the alternative title reveals - re-invents a Jewish alter ego for himself.

 

The production values of Dancing Arabs are very high, from the excellent traditionalist cinematography - which sets it apart from other films of the kind that often opt for the realistic immediacy of handheld shots by making use of fluid motions and crane shots - to the wonderful performances by the competent cast, headed by Barhom in the leading role of the Palestinian kid, whose soft spoken performance makes his intentions and internal conflict all the more magnetically mysterious. Equally as impressive is the white noise of the cultural socio-political background between belligenert conflicts and manifestations of the tense relations between Israel and Palestine that heavily shapes Eyad's character development and evolution, but never truly takes over the film completely.

 

That is also because it seems like Riklis is searching for a careful balance between the human side of the political story and the political inclination. The intentions are quite ambitious - despite the pace of the film being widely inconsistent. The second part of the film lacks a significant driving force, and seems to skip some important elements of the story, which amplifies the distance at which we, the viewers, are kept from the characters. The most intriguing factor in the film, however, comes from the characters around Eyad, even the ones that most prominently mark the overall narrative, who seem extremely underdeveloped, and this makes the relationships seem unimportant, approximative and cold. 

 

Perhaps, this too points to a certain one sided selfishness of Eyad's, and highlights his intelligence, a point that calls upon a viewer's subjective views. But in the end, in sight of Palestinian discrimination and considering the lacking opportunities represented by his once promising father's disappointing fruit picking career, can Eyad truly be painted as a bad guy?