January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Competition Documentary / Just Married
Rich potential, but boring execution
Most of the conflict centres around a relatively new law, barring Palestinians from living over the border — even if they are married to an Israeli.
Unable to live together in Israel, one of the couples is exiled in Germany. They do everything by the book, attempt to win visas and to skirt the law through diplomatic channels.
The other couple is less, and more, interesting to watch.
They sneak back and forth across the border and hide from the watchful gaze of the military police.
The film is a slow starter focusing on the banal bureaucratic details of the law and the couples’ attempts to circumvent it. But it switches up a gear when both women become pregnant and the stark choice of home or husband becomes more real.
At that point the stories are more personal and more interesting as the emotions become more intense.
It would have been nice to see that carried through the entire film. The subject matter is there — politics and war standing in the way of love and family is an evocative pitch for a documentary.
One of the flaws with this, though, is that the couples aren’t actually very interesting.
The first couple, exiled in Germany, don’t even seem to like each other very much. And we hear and see very little of how they got together in the first place. It would be easier to buy into the premise if we could empathize more with the characters but unfortunately the filmmakers don’t give us that opportunity.
There was rich potential in this subject but this turned out to be a pretty boring film.[[In-content Ad]]
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