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Your Learning Zone - The Band's Visit
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List Price: $28.96
Our Price: $16.29
Your Save: $ 12.67 ( 44% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Starring: Ahuva Keren, Ronit Elkabetz, Sasson Gabai, Khalifa Natour, Eyad Sheety
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Sony
EAN: 0043396238732
Format: AC-3
Label: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Region Code: 99
Release Date: 2008-07-29
Running Time: 87
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A charming Middle-Eastern art film
Comment: "The Band's Visit" is a charming, gentle, low-key art film telling the tale of a touring Egyptian police band that finds itself stranded in a podunk town in the Israeli desert. Short on cash and having missed the last bus of the days, the forlorn Egyptians are forced to rely on the kindness of strangers -- in this case, the same Israelis who they have recently been at war with. But the Israelis are every bit as forlorn as the Egyptians -- everybody's a little bit broken inside, struggling with the same little lonelinesses and discarded hopes. The two groups don't entirely bridge their cultural gap, but they come pretty close. This is a very deliberate, quiet film -- some may find the pacing a bit glacial, but it certainly pays of in the end. Definitely worth checking out! (Joe Sixpack, Slipcue film reviews)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lost in the desert
Comment: The Band's Visit (2007) aka Bikur Ha-Tizmoret (2007), the directorial debut of Erin Kolirin, is the winner of three 2007 Cannes Festival's awards and 8 Awards of Israeli Academy of Film. Even though its subject, the relations between Jews and Arabs, is complex and controversial, the movie is gentle, sweet, hopeful, optimistic, a little sad, and well worth of seeing. The movie tells about the Egyptian policemen-musicians, the members of the Alexandria Police Ceremonial Orchestra and how they arrived to Israel one day to play at the opening of the Arab Cultural Center in Pet Hatikvah. Somehow, no one met them at the airport, and they took the bus that got them to the small town or rather village of Bet Hatikvah, in the middle of nowhere, or to be precise, somewhere in Negev desert. The musicians with their instruments wearing sky-blue uniforms stuck in Bet Hatikvah for the night because the right bus only comes once a day. How Egyptians and Jews communicate during that night, how they impact one another, what they learn about complete strangers and about themselves - makes the simple but very real and very hopeful story. The film is minimalistic, it does not use special effects or many words but it managed to tell us something important about these people by looking closely at their faces, observing their body language, sympathizing with them. You know, it is so good to see or a chance a movie with no villains, chases, guns, predictable situations, obligatory affairs, etc. It is really nice to be able to get drawn inside the movie, to feel like you've met good friends, not perfect or heroic, sometimes shy and awkward, but real and interesting to us. Two main characters as played by very good Israeli actors who are terrific in their riles and I'd love to see them getting international acclaim. Ronit Elkabeth is stunning - I could not take off my eyes off her face. Intense, passionate, sexy, three times winner of Israel Academy awards for acting, actress/director/writer, she is a national treasure. Sasson Gabai, who is apparently famous in Israel but not outside the country, was also outstanding as the repressed and shy leader of the band, Lieutenant-colonel Tawfiq Zacharya. With the running time only 87 minutes, The Band's Visit is one of the best and most memorable films from last year.
4.5/5
Customer Rating:
Summary: What you feel will be more than what you see
Comment: Good writing, it has been argued, demands a keen sense of what to leave out. This remarkable film excels in its choice of what to omit.
Never before in viewing a film have I so strongly felt the presence of matters off-screen. This film, I believe, is nothing less than a profound fable about the whole of relations between the Arab and Israeli worlds. Remarkably what triumphs here is the humanity of each culture. Each is heroic; each is humane.
Sadly, there is never peacefulness, just tension never resolved; sadly, there is never triumph, just accomodation. There is an aching sadness throughout the film--there has been loss; there still is loss, there will always be loss. Throughout the film--especially in the silent moments (where I swear you hear the voices of Jewish and Muslim dead) and especially in the memorable shots of empty landscapes and ruminative shots of main characters--which never seem to fully fill the camera frame (where I swear you see the ghosts of Arab and Israeli dead)--there is the weight of a ruinous past, a troubled present, an unresolved future.
May G-d bless; Inshallah
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sad movie
Comment: This movie has an interesting premise, but leaves you wanting more. Almost all of the Egyptian band members act very reserved and depressed during the movie. They rarely smile, say much or do anything. It seems like this movie has a lot of potential for friednships to form, but it ends up seeming like an inconsequential visit. The movie is worth checking out, but in my opinion it ends up being less than advertised.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lost and Found
Comment: Like the utterly different Paradise Now, The Band's Visit finds the complex humans behind the popular dichotomies of the Middle East. A budget-pressed Egyptian police band, still resplendent in their (as one character says) "Michael Jackson" uniforms arrives in Israel, is not met by their sponsors, takes travel matters into their own hands, and winds up lost and nearly without money in the most dreary desert town this side of Wristcutters: A Love Story. The band is hungry; its straitlaced director approaches the restaurant owner, Dina, and asks for food and the chance to pay with Egyptian money. She prepares a meal and, after telling them there is no hotel in town, invites them to stay in her home and that of her unemployed friend with marriage problems and a wife's birthday.
And so the bare desert stage is set for a singular night. Among the many quiet, amusing and lonely vignettes: the band director, Tewfiq, reveals his personal sadness to Dina in a concrete plaza as they listen to an imaginary sea; a band member unconsciously wipes out a glass as if in a dubious restaurant, except he's sitting at table with his Israeli hosts; and -- best of all -- the band's ladies man gives dating help in a roller rink to a painfully shy Israeli.
Day comes, the band moves on to its correct destination, and plays. Life returns to normal, but normal for the dozen characters in The Band's Visit has been forever, if only slightly, altered.
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Editorial Reviews:
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This heartwarming and poignant winner of the Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard prize is the mesmerizing and witty story of strangers in a strange land. A fading Egyptian police band arrives in Israel to play at the Arab Cultural Center. When they take the wrong bus, the band members find themselves in a desolate Israeli village. With no other option than to spend the night with the local townspeople, the two distinctly different cultures realize the universal bonds of love, music and life. Set against a breathtaking desert landscape, this cross-cultural comedy proves that getting lost is sometimes the best way to find yourself.
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