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Band's Visit, The
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 18 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by: Eran Kolirin
Directed by: Eran Kolirin
Release Date:
Theatrical: February 8, 2008
DVD: July 29, 2008
Running Time: 87 minutes, Color
Origin: Israel / France / USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for brief strong language
Starring Ronit Elkabetz, Sasson Gabai, Uri Gavriel, Imad Jabarin, Ahuva Keren, Rubi Moskovitz, Khalifa Natour, and Hilla Sarjon
The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra arrives in Israel to play at the opening of an Arab Cultural Center. Dressed in full regalia and observing all military police protocol, the members of the orchestra are at a pivotal time in their careers. It’s not just the political nature of an Arab military police band playing traditional Arab music in Israel that makes this event so important; budget cuts and many reorganizations have threatened the continued existence of the Orchestra. Faced with the heavy burden of this assignment, the stoic conductor Tewfiq is determined not to foul their excursion. Despite all Tewfiqs efforts, it’s not long before problems arise. The band arrives at the airport with no one there to greet them. Stranded and unable able to contact their Israeli hosts or the Egyptian consulate for help, Tewfiq decides that the Orchestra will persevere with its assignment and orders, and designates Khaled, a sauve young ladies man, to ask for directions. Khaled and the station agent struggle in English, Arabic and Hebrew to communicate, but despite their best efforts, the Orchestra is sent to the outskirts of a small forgotten Israeli town in the desert. (Sony Classics)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
San Francisco Chronicle David Wiegand
A lovely, smart and beautifully understated film.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The Band’s Visit has not provided any of the narrative payoffs we might have expected, but has provided something more valuable: An interlude involving two “enemies,” Arabs and Israelis, that shows them both as only ordinary people with ordinary hopes, lives and disappointments. It has also shown us two souls with rare beauty.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
This movie has a tone, look and mood all its own - it's a joyously bittersweet piece of visual music about isolation, melancholy and everyone's yearning for transcendence, through love, art or both.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Something marvelous happens as the filmmaker, in his first feature, expertly metes out small scenes of communication between people taught, for generations, to be wary of one another: This Band swings with the rhythms of hope.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
First-time filmmaker Kolirin paces his can-we-all-just-get-along? parable as if it were a silent comedy, which for long stretches it is. This movie about musicians has no soundtrack. Its musical moments are few, but potent.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
It's a small, profoundly satisfying movie that keeps echoing long after it's over.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
A remote, Israeli desert town is the setting for this droll, endearing comedy about an accidental cultural exchange that very quietly says some very important things about contemporary Arab-Israeli relations.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Tonally, The Band's Visit steps gingerly on the line between “sweetly humane” and “cloyingly quirky.”
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
A charming little film built of bits of music, romance, cultural conflict and the simple human need to connect.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
It's a delicate parable, droll rather than funny, wise rather than smart. Eran Kolirin, debuting as a writer-director, has the deadpan sparseness of the Finnish Aki Kaurismaki, but his vision is gentler, less bleak; at moments, the movie is almost sentimental, but the performances save it every time.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
The Band’s Visit resounds with tenderness and melancholy.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Both sweet-natured and sharply pointed, a film whose poignant, emotional effects and subtle acting sneak up on you.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
By the time Tawfiq, Dina, and the band’s boy Lothario, Haled (Bakri), commiserate over “My Funny Valentine” in the film’s sublime third act, writer/director Kolirin has created a remarkable world where no struggle is too severe to overcome with a little empathy and the Great American Songbook on your side.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves
You can watch The Band’s Visit for its political idealism, or you can watch it for entertainment value alone. In either case, it doesn’t disappoint.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The movie, which is as low-key and subdued as Tewfiq himself, is something of a marvel: a precious work of minimalism that, instead of disappearing into itself the way so many small-scale comedies do, grows before your eyes into something profound and profoundly affecting.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
A drama about isolation and communication, The Band's Visit is characterized both by strongly delineated characters and low-key comedy. The movie is not lightweight but it is at times lighthearted.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
This modest little fable from Israel, in English, Hebrew and Arabic, has spellbinding resonances, yet never breaks the spell by blowing its own horn.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Mr. Kolirin, it emerges, is wrenching comedy out of intense melancholia.
Read Full Review >Variety Jay Weissberg
A warm and delightful take on cross-cultural relations that proves that sometimes a light touch is just what's needed to address serious topics.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
As the film concludes with his upraised hand, conductor’s fingers unfurling against a blue sky, you do feel that you have witnessed a small victory of wisdom over indifference and ennui. When in doubt, strike up the band.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
I’d be lying if I said that The Band’s Visit isn’t touching and uplifting and all those other audience-friendly emotions against which film critics are believed to religiously steel themselves. But in a season rife with movies (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Grace Is Gone, The Kite Runner, et al.) that aggressively pry open viewers’ chest cavities and yank on their heartstrings, Kolirin’s film is the only one that plucks at them gently, tickling the funny bone as it goes.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Kolirin has a fine sense of where to place the camera and when to cut between shots for maximum comic effect, and his two lead actors--Sasson Gabai as the band's conductor and Ronit Elkabetz (Or) as one of the locals--are terrific.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White
A slight but wise comedy about the loneliness that makes all men brothers.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.7 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Chad S. gave it a10:
All dressed up and nowhere to go, the Egyptian Invasion of Israel gets off to an ignominious start when The Alexandria Police Ceremonial Orchestra find themselves in the wrong town, the wrong Bet Hatkiva. This Bet Hatkiva is practically a ghost town, whose chosen people, choose to live by the tenets of minimalism. In spite of the orchestra's extended layover, these stoic musicians remain in their formal blue uniforms, which grows increasingly hilarious as they clash repeatedly with the drab interiors and exteriors of the town. The band is like some straight-laced person's acid flashback. The clash of egos between Tewfiq(Sasson Gabai) and Simon(Khalifa Natour), and the filmmaker's absurdest sensibilities, results in a film that suggests "This is Spinal Tap" by Beckett. Tewfiq and Dina(Ronit Elkabetz) sit on a "park" bench, waiting, not for Godot, but for love to arrive. Unfortunately, Dina makes an offhanded comment about Arab men which rankles the lieutenant-colonel; so natural, is the buried expression, like breathing, does her deal-breaking words of racial stereotyping, suddenly politicize their sitting and talking, once mired with great expectations for love. Alas, God rears its ugly head. Wistful, but never gloomy(like the "gloomy girl", a possible nod to Aki Kaurismaki's "Leningrad Cowboys Go America"), "The Band's Visit" shares the same comic touch for miniature emotions as the Finnish master of the subtle ha-ha.
Jay H. gave it an8:
Outstanding film, wonderfully directed, superbly acted. Touching, very well written and always interesting. Good score, excellent character development. A winner.
Khan M. gave it a9:
One of the finest examples of film aesthetics. One can never be bored or tired of watching this beautifully made movie.
Paul K. gave it an8:
The pace is somewhat slow, but if you can get past that minor hurdle, this is quite a nice film. Donna C. described it as charming, although I normally don't use the word, it pretty much sums this film up. A simple story, told in a straight forward manner, 'The Band's Visit' is breath of fresh air. Check it out.
Donna C. gave it a6:
Charming, but so slow it was tedious.
Patrick T. gave it a10:
You may not have a more thoroughly enjoyable time at the movies this year. Stark yet sumptuous in its implications. Sweet yet devastatingly sad. An immensely pleasurable exercise in contrast and plurality.
