A Visit With Israeli Director Eran Kolirin

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Interviews

Published on Saturday, 28 November 2009 18:20

Written by Laura Blum

Eran Kolirin is the director and writer of The Band's Visit, a fable about the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra's star-crossed visit to Israel to perform at an Arab Cultural Center.

Kolirin's debut feature swept Israel's Ophir Awards and had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. It was also Israel's official entry for the Best Foreign-Language Oscar—until it wasn't.

Film Festival Traveler catches up with Kolirin and finds out why getting lost can sometimes be a find.
 
Q: What was the inspiration for this story?
 
EK: The inspiration came from an image I had of the commander and also from Journey to Israel, a book by Ali Salem, an Egypt playwright who came to Israel and wrote about his experience.
 
Q: Did such an Egyptian band ever visit Israel?
 
EK: No. The one official cultural exchange was in 1981: the national Egyptian dance group.
 
Q: How does The Band's Visit connect with your early experience of watching Egyptian movies on Israeli TV?
 
EK: For me it's a nostalgic thing, it connects with a personal nostalgia and also with a nostalgia for a more naïve Israel, at least in the eyes of the child that I might have been back then. Egyptian movies were the soap operas of my childhood, like the old Hollywood cinema of big love and big gestures--bigger than life.
 
Q: Common human foibles unite the Arabs and Israelis in your film. Are you saying something about the path to peace?
 
EK: No, I didn't finely tune myself in that way. I didn't think about those mistakes as something that unites Arab and Israelis, just as I didn't write from any starting point that they were different and needed to find a path that connects the two. Small or big human mistakes are the basic things for any human drama; it's not interesting if they don't have those mistakes. It's what instinctively draws me to even architecture or scenery, if there's a mistake in the place.
 
Q: From your opening disclaimer that the band's visit "was not that important," to Dina's remark that there is "no culture" in her town, to the characters' small moments of self restraint, you strike a modest note that lets us envision breakthroughs on a higher level. Talk about how the film aims high by aiming low.
 
EK: I wanted this kind of tension running throughout the movie as something very high and very low. So a character might sit in a shwarma or shiskabab restaurant but would speak about a poem or art, in the same way that there'd be a contradiction between something stupid and reciting an old Sufi poem in the roller disco. The idea was to bring those elements together in every frame so the simple tones of the film would exist and give something which is high. Eitan Green, a screenwriting mentor I had a lot of conversations with, said you should write simple and aim for the complex.
 
Q: The band has long managed on its own, and proud band leader Tewfiq is loathe to call for help. Are there other institutions that you're alluding to here?
 
EK: No, I was writing from my own self. A very simple man that I am I would never ask for directions, and would never be the one to stop the car and admit I'm lost. It's about getting lost and about something that could happen once you're off your formal self and off your road and your usual expectations. This mistake was essential for the flowers to grow.
 
Q: Do I detect a note of fatalism?
 
EK: I wrote this because of hopes and dreams, and part of it is this hoping that you could go wrong and find a better way by choosing the small road and not the big road. But I cannot say that by making a mistake you will find the right path.
 
Q: Language—and an error in interpretation--launches the characters on a path to closer mutual understanding. Is the fussed-over language of diplomacy unequal to the task of peacemaking?
 
EK: I would say that the emotional side of things is also important, when the conversation becomes feelings and not a conversation of commerce, as in: How much do we give, get and put in? It may be that what is very obvious is getting lost from the language of diplomacy and commercial conversation.
A lot of people in Israel are frustrated by the peace process. They want to meet people from the other side, but it's considered a weakness. There's this constant pressure to ask, What can we get for ourselves out of an agreement?  It's more like a divorce agreement than a marriage agreement. The film explores the feeling of wanting to connect with the region to people you don't know and are apart from, of having a yearning for peace and also of being a part of what can make it happen. The question of how and why are important but they don't stand alone. In recent years I have the feeling it's become more about the negotiation. Something is lacking from this conversation. It seems (the emotional) element is forgotten.
 
Q: From Simon's unfinished concerto to singing Summertime around the table to Khaled's us of Chet Baker to flirt, how does music serve as a means of communication in your film?
 
EK: All the characters have a deep emotion deep inside of them they cannot express, something they cannot call in its name. Each could have had another life, but they cannot go back and take another turn in the road. They are all living inside of themselves, but are unable to express this feeling. In the film when they get to this point of being unable to express this feeling, this is where the music comes in for me. Silence also takes it, or hand gestures take it.
 
Q: Itzik advises Simon not to reach for grand themes in his concerto but to stay with realistic nuances, as in the room where his child sleeps. Who else can benefit from this advice?
 
EK: This was about myself. I had trouble finishing this script. For me it was a kind of a self-reflexive thing, and I could only finish it when it wasn't from the perspective of the great concerto. It's about letting go. This also reflects a lot of questions about the concept of finding a final solution, including in the relationship between nations. It's all in the here and now and not necessarily in the grand finale--not trying to solve all the problems in one stable solution.
 
Q: One of the funniest scenes is Ronit Elkabetz's Dina splitting open a blood red watermelon with the aggression of a fighter and independence of a man but with the sultry sex appeal of a self-possessed woman. What are these Egyptians thinking while watching their Israeli hostess rip open this watermelon?
 
EK: How would I know? I just told her to open the watermelon and let them look. These are men observing a woman.
 
Q: Personal storytelling, and not political reporting, is a hallmark of Israeli cinema in recent years. (Instead of discussing politics, your Arab and Israeli characters chat about their personal lives.) Is there such a thing as the Israeli New Wave, and if so, how does The Band's Visit complement the trend?
 
EK: I don't know if I can draw a line and say there's a New Wave in Israeli cinema. You cannot draw a line of aesthetic approach. For me the movie is a political movie, and it's only in the way that it deals with the political question that is different. First and foremost I set out to write characters that have their own lives and personal pains and personal truths and hopes, and these things come before the political agenda. It's also a realistic approach since for me, since what moves me first when I meet someone is the personal and not the political. I feel uncomfortable when I feel expected from the world to treat characters in the films just as a political idea and not as a human being first and foremost. Politics is in the background, but first a character has his mother, his family, his job. Politics is important but it's not the first thing that drives you.
 
Q: Dina's empathy and warmth thaws band leader Tewfiq's rigidities so he is able to accept her hospitality. What compelled you to explore this basic act of kindness?
 
EK: Hospitality, like getting lost, is going to disappear from the face of the earth. With all those GPS devices out there no one will get lost, people will always get to their hotels. This world is changing. In writing this script I was asked how come she takes them in? In a more dramatic script or a more classic Hollywood script, something would prevent her from bringing them in. But it didn't fit for me. I thought she'd take a very simple human decision on the spot. It worked, you believe it, because of the woman she is. Because of her character she was able to make a very simple decision of: Why not? I think there 's a kind of genetics in the very basic idea when you start writing a script, and it doesn't work when you try to force a formula. If you listen to the script enough you see it's her truth. This was in the grain of the script and I couldn't change it even if I wanted to. It's about following what it dictates for you, you cannot dictate to it. In this case it was the more gentle and simple approach. Let's take them in.
 
Q: Khaled's pointers to the shy and romantically inexperienced Papi at the roller disco brought welcome comic relief. Tell us about your use of comedy in this bittersweet drama.
 
EK: I'm not the kind of man who'd only talk with wine in his hand and talk dogma. I would also say something with a smile. It's an instinct for me. I never tried to put a joke inside. I just tried to make a situation accurate according to a certain tone of the movie. Sometimes the situation has something basically funny, with a kind of awkwardness or tension, but I never thought, "This would be funny."
 
Q: Has the film been shown in an Arab country?
 
EK: No, it hasn't. It was invited to the Abu Dabi film festival, but was disinvited at the last moment. Why exactly I don't know. The papers said it was coming from political pressures in the Arab world.
 
Q: Do you believe your film's Oscar yanking was politically motivated?
 
EK: I don't know if it was political. More it was a big establishment that has their own strange rules and they apply these rules without a lot of interpretation but rather cause they're big.
 
Q: Did you ever think to cast Egyptian actors?
 
EK: In the beginning I wanted to cast Egyptian actors, but in the early stages it was clear I could not. Sasson Gabai, the Israeli actor who plays Tewfiq, comes from Iraqi family and knew Iraqi Arabic. We had lots of translators, including a dialogue coach from Alexandria, who worked with the Palestinian and Israeli cast.
 
Q: What can you tell us about Pathways to the Desert, your next film?
 
EK: Nothing yet!