The Ballad of the Weeping Spring

Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and its Hollywood remake The Magnificent Seven are the obvious inspirations for Benny Toraty's Israeli award-winner, only the tone here is genial—with Mizrahi musical instruments replacing Japanese swords or Wild West guns. The story begins with young Avram (Arnon Zadok) approaching Jossef (Uri Gavriel), a reclusive ex-con, with a plea that he take up his long-untouched tar—a Middle Eastern lute—and gather other musicians to come to the bedside of his dying father in order to perform the titular piece, which the two older men composed many years earlier but never played. Jossef agrees, and the film follows him and Avram as they assemble a band. Some are old friends of Jossef's, but others are newcomers—a talented young singer, a blind flautist—and the would-be recruiters must use considerable persuasion (and in some cases a bit of chicanery) to secure involvement when an angry wife or a local gang boss tries to get in the way. The enticements of the bars that they visit to search for talent can also prove to be a serious obstacle. Naturally, all the effort turns out to be worth it. The Ballad of the Weeping Spring succeeds as a good-natured homage to Kurosawa and John Sturges, but is also a lively tribute to the Mizrahi genre of music, which originated in the Jewish communities in Arab and Persian lands to the east of Israel and continues to be played by immigrants. Recommended. (F. Swietek)