I’ve been lucky enough lately to score some gigs writing for Australia’s best (and second biggest, circulation-wise) movie magazine Filmink. Yay for me. Among some feature articles and interviews I’ve had the supremely awesome task of watching movies on preview and writing what I think about them. Since there’s practically nothing I’d rather do than watch movies and I have an opinion on everything, this is pretty close to that magical, mystical land of loving work. McLovin’ work.
So anyways, one of the preview discs popping its silvery, binary, plasticy length through my letterbox recently was the Palestinian/Israeli drama Lemon Tree. I watched, I scribbled, I opinioned, and I cobbled together the rough shape of a review. When I write, (allow me to digress again), when I write I make a few notes, undoubtedly indecipherable to anyone else, and then I walk away. I wait and see what sticks with me – ideas or films or gripes – and roll it all around in my head until I see the angle open up. If I can’t shake an image, a phrase or a theme, that’s the point through which I approaching the subject. What resonates. What inflames. What connects me and allows more than a cursory glance.
Blah blah blah. The point is that in the few days between my hurried notes and the angle emerging I was diverted to working on a more pressing article for the mag, and by the time I came back to it, the review had been handballed to another willing writer. All, good – I ended up with both an excuse to watch a movie and a feature article. I’d forgotten about it, moved on, adios West Bank muchacos.
That was until about a week ago, when the film got its general cinema release. Tom Ryan from The Age, David Stratton and Margaret Pomerantz from At The Movies, and a host of other mainstream media gave this dreary and uninspiring offering four stars. Out of five. A high distinction. A film in the top 20 percent released on the general public. Uh, no. It isn’t. Not by a long fucking way.
To set the record straight and even up the ledger, what follows is my review of the film. Enjoy.
Based on a true story, Israeli-Palestinian co-production Lemon Tree has at its heart the noble if naive ideas that we must make a stand for what we love and that compassion has the possibility of crossing cultural divides. If that sounds like a twee lens through which to see the Middle East, it is.
There are some charming performances and engaging moments, but the whole experience is a bit…cold. The symbolism of the eponymous lemon tree is dreadfully laboured. Even the most casual observer of world affairs would realise that some situations are beyond such simplified metaphor, and not a useful lens through which to view the conflict. But not only is the land of the Arab Israeli conflict rendered simplistic – worse, in cinematic terms, it is made mundane.
It is a cruel shame that the acting talent obvious here is applied to a loaded and emotive subject with so little filmmaking subtlety. Nostalgia is shown by the tearful fingering of the outline of a face on a computer screen. Deep secrets are unearthed when Polaroids are discovered conveniently left lying around on an office desk. It becomes obvious that the creative impetus behind this film is far too invested in the sentimentality of the message the film aims at than the crafting of a compelling journey. Unfortunately, it seems most reviewers will steer audiences down a frustratingly fruitless path as victims of the same sentimentality. I’m all for resolution to the devastating West Bank conflict, and agree with the spirit of Lemon Tree that the way forward is likely to come from the grass roots – between neighbours and shop owners and unlikely personal empathy. But please, don’t see this movie. Opposite to the fruit at the centre of the story, Lemon Tree has a sweet start and a bitter aftertaste.
2 / 5
So anyways, one of the preview discs popping its silvery, binary, plasticy length through my letterbox recently was the Palestinian/Israeli drama Lemon Tree. I watched, I scribbled, I opinioned, and I cobbled together the rough shape of a review. When I write, (allow me to digress again), when I write I make a few notes, undoubtedly indecipherable to anyone else, and then I walk away. I wait and see what sticks with me – ideas or films or gripes – and roll it all around in my head until I see the angle open up. If I can’t shake an image, a phrase or a theme, that’s the point through which I approaching the subject. What resonates. What inflames. What connects me and allows more than a cursory glance.
Blah blah blah. The point is that in the few days between my hurried notes and the angle emerging I was diverted to working on a more pressing article for the mag, and by the time I came back to it, the review had been handballed to another willing writer. All, good – I ended up with both an excuse to watch a movie and a feature article. I’d forgotten about it, moved on, adios West Bank muchacos.
That was until about a week ago, when the film got its general cinema release. Tom Ryan from The Age, David Stratton and Margaret Pomerantz from At The Movies, and a host of other mainstream media gave this dreary and uninspiring offering four stars. Out of five. A high distinction. A film in the top 20 percent released on the general public. Uh, no. It isn’t. Not by a long fucking way.
To set the record straight and even up the ledger, what follows is my review of the film. Enjoy.
Based on a true story, Israeli-Palestinian co-production Lemon Tree has at its heart the noble if naive ideas that we must make a stand for what we love and that compassion has the possibility of crossing cultural divides. If that sounds like a twee lens through which to see the Middle East, it is.
There are some charming performances and engaging moments, but the whole experience is a bit…cold. The symbolism of the eponymous lemon tree is dreadfully laboured. Even the most casual observer of world affairs would realise that some situations are beyond such simplified metaphor, and not a useful lens through which to view the conflict. But not only is the land of the Arab Israeli conflict rendered simplistic – worse, in cinematic terms, it is made mundane.
It is a cruel shame that the acting talent obvious here is applied to a loaded and emotive subject with so little filmmaking subtlety. Nostalgia is shown by the tearful fingering of the outline of a face on a computer screen. Deep secrets are unearthed when Polaroids are discovered conveniently left lying around on an office desk. It becomes obvious that the creative impetus behind this film is far too invested in the sentimentality of the message the film aims at than the crafting of a compelling journey. Unfortunately, it seems most reviewers will steer audiences down a frustratingly fruitless path as victims of the same sentimentality. I’m all for resolution to the devastating West Bank conflict, and agree with the spirit of Lemon Tree that the way forward is likely to come from the grass roots – between neighbours and shop owners and unlikely personal empathy. But please, don’t see this movie. Opposite to the fruit at the centre of the story, Lemon Tree has a sweet start and a bitter aftertaste.
2 / 5
