Lemon Tree

Israeli filmmakers have been adept at fashioning parables that embody their revulsion at the country's treatment of Palestinians. The second such film from writer-director Eran Riklis, whose earlier The Syrian Bride [see VL 5/06] was an absurdist comedy-drama about a wedding undone by complications at a border crossing in the Golan Heights, Lemon Tree takes a more serious approach. Salma Zidane (Hiam Abbass) is a beautiful widow who scrupulously tends the family lemon grove her father planted at their homestead on the West Bank border. However, its existence is threatened when the new Israeli defense minister, Israel Navon (Doron Tavory), builds a mansion next door and the grove is condemned for security reasons. Faced with an order that the trees be removed, Salma decides to challenge the decision in court, and the dispute becomes an international cause célèbre—as well as a cinematic metaphor for the wall that Israel is building to separate itself from the Palestinian territories. Fortunately, Riklis doesn't hammer home the analogy, Abbass plays her part with wonderful restraint, and the proceedings are leavened with an amusing subplot involving a sad-sack Israeli soldier stationed at the guard tower on the minister's property. In fact, the only heavy-handed narrative thread turns out to be the haltingly romantic relationship between the widow and her lawyer, which pushes the film uncomfortably toward melodrama. But it's a minor flaw in a story that comes down clearly on the Palestinian side but does so without simply caricaturing the Israelis. Recommended. (F. Swietek)