A BORROWED IDENTITY (fka DANCING ARABS)
Strand Releasing
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: B+
Director: Eran Riklis
Screenwriter:  Sayed Kashua, adapted from his novel “Dancing Arabs”
Cast:  Tawfeek Barhom, Yaël Abecassis, Michael Moshonov, Ali Suliman, Daniel Kitzis, Marlene Bajali, Laëtitia Eido, Razi Gabareen, Norman Issa
Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 6/17/15
Opens:  June 26, 2015

We’re accustomed to typically American movies about life in high school: how the students are divided into subgroups like “the jocks,” “the nerds,” and “the goths.”  While teens place great emphasis on fitting in, they actually fit into not to a homogenous whole but into one of these divisions. As long as you have a band of friends to choose from, you’re socially content.  But what if the situation leads to individuals who are so socially isolated that they fit in nowhere?  In “A Borrowed Identity,” directed by Eran Riklis, an Israeli Jew whose “The Syrian Bride” deals with a Druze woman living in the Golan Heights who will lose her national identity if she moves to her fiancés quarters in Damascus. It is adapted from his novel by Israeli Arab Sayed Kashua whose “House” focuses on a Palestinian family living in a house commandeered by Israeli soldiers.  Both director and writer have strong, separate identities while living under a Jewish government, yet the two are able to develop a film that pays homage to the harsh opinions that Jews have of Arabs and vice versa while holding out the hope of reconciliation—at least on a person-to-person basis.

The word from the ‘vine is that the novel has been sanitized to give the movie a chance to nurture an international audience, and indeed, you can come away from this narrative with the oversimplified view that yes, we can all get along, as long as you keep the governments out of the picture.  In Israel today there are co-existence movements wherein Arabs and Jews meet and work together, though one has to wonder whether the Arabs, who are under the thumb of the Israeli occupation, feel patronized.  Not so the folks in this kumbaya-ish movie, one which avoids the fine points of the novel such as the hatred the principal character feels for his fellow Arabs who, he believes, look ridiculous when on the dance floor.   Nor do we hear anything about the way he takes pills the day before a final exam, winding up in the hospital.

The story is told through the eyes of Eyad (Tawfeek Barhom), a Palestinian from a poor Arab village in Israel, who (seen as a small fry played by Razi Gabereen) is brilliant and who, as a teen, is admitted to a boarding school populated some 98% by Jews.  At first, some Jews pick on him because of his pronunciation: for example, he pronounces “Parliament” as “Barliament,” but determined to succeed he becomes fluent in Hebrew, analyses literature in class in a more sophisticated way than his contemporaries, and after becoming best friends with Yonatan (Michael Moshonov), a fellow outsider who is crippled by muscular dystrophy, falls in love with Naomi (Daniel Kitsis).

Though Naomi’s mother understands that her daughter’s boyfriend is Arab, she replies in one of the film’s great quotes (as related by Naomi to Eyad), “Tell me you have cancer.  Tell me you’re a lesbian. But don’t tell me you have an Arab boyfriend.”  Not so unforgiving is Yonatan’s mom Edna (Yaël Abecassis), who allows her son’s best friend to move into her spacious accommodations while Eyad tutors Yonatan for the exams.

Attitudes from supporting players give us insight into the ways that Arabs and Jews feel about each other.  Eyad father, Salah (Ali Suliman), had a bright future until he was arrested for terrorism and had to settle for becoming a fruit picker.  He wants his boy to attend the boarding school notwithstanding its overwhelmingly Jewish population because he understands that a diploma from there will open many doors.  Eyad’s grandmother sees Israeli jets heading to Lebanon and prays that the pilots never come back.  A group of Arab Israelis watch some of Saddam’s missiles falling on Israel and cheer, even believing that they see an image of the Iraqi despot on the moon.

The concluding moments tie strings together.  Eyad is to borrow an identity, hence the title of the film.  Naomi is to make a decision about her romantic relationship with Eyad.  Edna becomes the writer’s and director’s front-person for expressing hopes for co-existence between the two cultures.  Best of all, Tawfeek Barhom, who may have been chosen because he does not look like the stereotypical Arab but more like someone who could “pass” even for a European, does a fine job in expressing the ever-more-confusing identity crisis of a young man.  Scenes were shot in the village of Kafr Qasim to stand in for Tira, the screenwriter’s hometown. The movie is in Hebrew with English subtitles.

Unrated.  104 minutes.  © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online

Story – B+
Acting – B
Technical – B
Overall – B+