IF YOU CAN duck your head beneath the huge, jagged metaphor that hurtles through this Israeli production, then you should find plenty to enjoy and plenty to think about. Eran Riklis, veteran director of such festival favourites as Cup Final, has dared to build a drama around the key conflict in his homeland, and the result is surprisingly easy on the palate.
The charismatic, powerfully voiced Hiam Abbass (also to be seen in this week's Conversations with My Gardener) stars as Salma Zidane, a widow who spends her days tending a grove of lemon trees that has belonged to her family for generations. Her hard but bearable life is upended when the Israeli defence minister moves in next door. His security men, concerned that the grove might offer shelter for snipers, begin snooping around.
Before long a watchtower has sprung up and Salma has learnt that the interlopers plan to chop down the trees.
Clearly a woman of indomitable spirit, Salma seeks out a Palestinian lawyer and prepares to take her case to the highest court. Though the scriptwriters are highly critical of Israeli policy, they are careful to acknowledge that not every country would permit such a legal challenge.
There is no getting away from the clunking symbolism of the lemon grove that divides (and unites) the Israeli and Palestinian characters. But the film is so well acted, and features a cluster of such intriguing relationships, that the metaphorical gaucheness ceases to matter.
Salma becomes close to her lawyer, she comes to a tense arrangement with the soldier in the tower and, most significantly, she develops an emotional connection with the minister's wife. The two women never quite meet, but, as victims of two contrasting classes of patriarchal bullying, they appear to accept a grudging sisterhood.
Oh, and the director says it is no accident that his lead character is named Zidane. Keep your eyes open for an explicit nod towards the great footballer.
Directed by Eran Riklis. Starring Hiam Abbass, Ali Suliman, Rona Lipaz-Michael, Doron Tavory. PG Cert, Queen's Belfast; IFI/Light House, Dublin, 106min ***
