Dancing Arabs (Eran Riklis)

The strife torn Middle East is always an enigma to the growing generation, whether it is the Jew, Arab or Christian, as for centuries they approach each other with suspicion and with simmering hatred.

‘Dancing Arabs’ is the name of the semi-autobiographical novel it’s derived from, by Israel-based Palestinian scribe Sayed Kashua, who also wrote the script.

This 105 minutes Israeli film which was aimed at to make Jews comfortable with Arabs, tells the story of a young Arab student in Israel struggling to find his identity.

Many reviewers of Dancing Arabs’ wrote that the opening sequence of the film itself could be a short film. Its sharp beginning gives a slice of the protagonist Eyad’s childhood in Palestine and paints a vivid picture of a small Arab village. Eyad, played for the most part by Tawfeek Barhom, is a smart kid, but the conflict between Israel and Palestine is both complex and deep.

In the Arab village of Tira, Eyad (Razi Gabareen as a boy, Tawfeek Barhom as a teen/young man) is his parents’ pride and joy.  Eyad’s smarts carry him through to young adulthood, gaining him a sought-after place at an educational establishment in Jerusalem. Years earlier, his father, Salah (Ali Suliman), began university studies in Jerusalem, but political activity got him arrested in 1969, and after serving jail term he returned home,  to become a fruit picker.  

The culture shock of being stranded in a city of people whose views are exactly opposite to his own hits him hard. The friends Eyad makes are initially powerless against a mood that stems from the anti-Palestine regime, and any hopes of fitting in seem distant.

Shy and awkward in Hebrew, without the cultural knowledge of his Israeli contemporaries, Eyad doesn’t fit into his new surroundings.  He’s isolated until a classmate, Naomi (Danielle Kitzis) befriends him. Eyad’s other lifeline is Yonatan (Michael Moshonov), a peer with muscular dystrophy whom Eyad is assigned to help with schoolwork. Both are “misfits”: one in a wheelchair, the other an Arab. Yonatan’s mother, Edna (Yael Abecassis), is a firm supporter of her son’s new friend, even asking him to move in when Yonatan’s condition worsens.

But Eyad, with a firm will and coaching from Jewish love interest Naomi, starts displaying his difference like a badge of honour. Further support comes from the final pillar of the story: Yonatan is around Eyad’s age but suffers from a terminal degenerative disease that is slowly stripping him of his mobility. Thrown together by the school’s outreach program, the two quickly bond over the shared differences from the rest of society. Their cruel jokes only strengthen their bond.

It is surprising that the tone of the film is light.  Weaving together its multiple plot threads in such a short space, don’t quite fit together many times though the end is neat.

Riklis carefully takes viewers through the strife torn years. Many events and others that followed made the dream of coexistence, impossibility. In Eyad’s point of view, he needs to disguise his Arab identity to fit into Israeli society.

 The attempts to soften the tone of the film will no doubt help its popularity, especially outside Israel. When Eyad, in class, dissects how Amos Oz and other Israeli writers use Arab characters in strictly orientalist terms, as sexual fantasies or signifiers of otherness, it’s a liberating scene. It’s nicely played by Barhom, who skilfully negotiates Eyad’s transition from an awkward outsider.

Abecassis, always a welcome presence, is strong as Yonatan’s warm, supportive mother, yet the script isolates her too much. Eyad’s understanding mother, Fahima (Laetitia Eido), also deserves more personality. Brightly lit camera work by Michael Wiesweg, makes everything attractive.