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Ajami
Ajami, a neighborhood in Jaffa, Israel, hosts an ethnically and religiously mixed population living in an incredibly delicate state of equilibrium. The threat of violence hangs in the air, and not just from ethnic and religious conflict; early in this compelling drama we see a Muslim character murdered seemingly at random, only to learn that the tension among various powerful Muslim families in Jaffa is the cause. That death becomes the center from which a complex web of plots expands.
Though we’re tired of having to assess any drama about Israel and the Palestinian territories on how even-handed it is (those with strong opinions on the two sides never agree that any representation is fair.…), nevertheless, we’ll soldier on and note that this film shows all the characters—Muslim, Jew and Christian—as flawed and complex individuals. People with perfectly good motives and sometimes even good intentions get tangled up in very bad things. The convolutions of the overlapping story lines get a bit confusing, especially when the film goes into flashback without warning, but it hardly matters. You’ll be carried along by the urgency of Copti and Shani’s direction.
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