Writer/director Ziad Doueiri (Lebanese born/U.S. trained/now Paris-based) gives us an unsatisfying film seemingly from the sidelines of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Being 'unsatisfying' the most honest thing about it since attempts at resolution, understanding or explanation certain to ring false. Still, he can’t avoid making choices in character and development that hit the points he wants to make, so the film inevitably feels dramatically predigested. Structured to mimic the Five Stages of Grief, played out as an investigation, it follows an honored Palestinian surgeon (a secular Muslim working in a Jewish/Israeli hospital) who learns his wife (a practicing Christian) died a suicide bomber, leaving many fatalities, including children. (Doueiri not more specific about the victims, and crucially leaving these events off-screen. Indeed, the only body we see is the remains of the wife.) Did he ever really know her? Or their relationship? Starting a journey to find the truth behind the tragic events leads to a series of disheartening encounters with in-laws, Muslim extremists, her mentoring priest (offering philosophical conundrums with an Old Testament’s threatening tone). If no man is an island, the good doctor comes about as close as you can get.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Ironically, most Arab countries banned the film, not for content, but for location as it was filmed in Israel.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Left unexplained is why the main theme for the couple in their romantic flashbacks should lift most of its melodic element from Rodgers & Hart’s ‘Blue Moon.’
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