Must the Fruit of the Lemon Tree be Impossible to Eat?
8/10
Author: peter henderson from Australia
5 October 2008
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Lemon Tree is something of an enigma Beautiful to behold. The actresses bring to mind those stylish and glamorous creatures that used to inhabit the French New Wave films such as those of Claude Chabrol. The men are civilised, sophisticated, capable of turning heads and touching minds. Appealing characters with flaws as well as virtues. The ideas being explored are universal – justice and mercy for widows, the rights of citizens to be able to pursue their lives in peace and security.
Both sides of the argument are given an articulate and arresting airing. It is impossible not to sympathise with Hiam Abbass' portrayal of Salma, the poor but self reliant widow who merely wishes to continue working the small family orchard her father left to her.And yet the rather soulless security officials are proved to be correct in their assessment of the site as a security risk. Bullets are fired from the orchard at high ranking government officials and ministers who attend as guests at the house warming party.
The culmination of the film, in which the erection of the security wall between the orchard and the Defence Minister's house alleviates the problem seems to be an admission of defeat. All the ingenuity, urbane civility and intelligence of Israeli culture has been found wanting.
I assume Rona Lipaz-Michael, who has portrayed with admirable understatement not only an awareness of the widow's plight but also the emptiness of her once vibrant but now seemingly loveless marriage to Israel Navon, the Defence Minister, is walking out on him in the last few scenes of the film. It brings to mind the culmination of Lee Tamahori's film, "Mulholland Falls" in which Melanie Griffith pronounces her judgment on not just the actions but also the moral values of her well meaning but flawed police detective husband.
That got me thinking about something I read in an Automobile Association World Travel Guide to Israel back in 1998. Perhaps not such a prestigious reference for matters of importance, but it stated that the Jewish National Fund owns 92% of Israel and (more surprisingly) that almost all of Israel had been purchased from the original owners before the setting up of the state of Israel in 1948.
Obviously the 1967 War changed the borders, but I wonder why rich and not so rich Jews around the world could not launch another fund to seek to buy, lease or set up exploratory avenues that would allow people of good will to investigate a means of sharing the land in a more equitable manner than seems to be the case depicted in this film.
The persistent image of that security wall throughout the film brings to mind a passage in Isaiah 54:2-3 ... "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.
But that comes from post apocalyptic passages of Isaiah. It concerns that obsession of the biblical prophets, "post-Day of the Lord", Israel and this film deals with Israel here and now. Readers of Israel's prophetic tradition would probably have to concede that Malachi's apocalyptic prophecies seem to mark the transitional phase.
The direction and scripting are exemplary, the performances engrossing and compelling. And yet the sum total of all the considerable talents invested in this film seems to amount to something less than a satisfying experience.
Director and joint writer Eran Riklis has deftly sidestepped the resort to the heavy handed caricature of films such as Ra'anan Alexandrowicz' "James' Journey to Jerusalem" (Massa'ot James Be'eretz Hakodesh) and the dour bleakness of Ronit and Shlomi Elkaberz' reworking of the prophetic writing of Hosea in their film, "Ve'Lakhta Lehe Isha" (To Take a Wife)
Maybe it is like the Lemon Tree of the title. Pretty, sweetly scented flowers but bearing fruit too sour to eat. Maybe that is the problem. The implications of what is being portrayed up on the screen are too bitter to contemplate for long.They are best left behind in the cinema And the packaging of the product is so well contrived that the viewer can do that by uttering a few sanctimonious sentiments about the difficulty of the situation facing Israelis and Palestinians and leaving it all up there on the screen.
