The Syrian Bride

Writer-director Eran Riklis' seriocomic The Syrian Bride focuses on an arranged wedding between a bride from a large fractured ethnic Druze family who have the misfortune of living in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and a groom who is a Syrian television star. Most of the action centers on the bride's family, in which there are major fissures: a son estranged from his activist father (who is newly paroled from an Israeli prison) arrives after an eight-year absence for the festivities with his Russian wife and child and is met with a stony reception, while an elder daughter—the family anchor during tribulation—is feuding with her husband over her plans to attend a university to which she's already been accepted. The internal rifts pale, however, alongside the snafu that occurs at the desolate station where the bride is supposed to pass into Syria (with the knowledge that she will never be able to return to see her family): in an absurdist but telling bit of farce, the two government officials refuse to recognize each other's border-crossing procedures, and while a frazzled UN negotiator proves unable to settle the dispute, the bride and her family are left stewing in the sun. The concluding twists bring some measure of reconciliation and empowerment, but all of the issues that divide these people (and, by extension, the Middle East itself) sadly cannot be resolved. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include an audio commentary by writer-director Riklis, a “making of” featurette, an interview with star Hiam Abbass, and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for a solid foreign film.] (F. Swietek)