THE BAND PLAYS ON

The Band's Visit

Eran Korlirin has not made a political statement with his debut feature, The Band’s Visit, but it still maintains an unavoidable topicality. The Israeli filmmaker stuffs his motley characters into a cheerfully simplistic jam: A whimsical bunch of Egyptian brass musicians en route to the Arab arts center become stranded in a vapid Israeli settlement, where they make awkward attempts to play nice with the hardened locals. Deadpan hilarity ensues—with a few healthy doses of melancholia—but the shadow of foreign animosity enshrouds every quirky vignette-like sequence, precipitating a metaphor stronger than anything overt about Korlirin’s breezy intentions.

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