"Dancing Arabs" indulges in a peculiar kind of late ‘80s/early ‘90s nostalgia: a fond wistfulness for a time in the Middle East when Jews and Arabs mostly despised each other, but actual casualties from terrorism or reprisals were few… friendships across the racial/religious divide were more common… and the dream that a West Bank boy and Israeli girl could date only seemed 99 percent impossible. As quaint longings for a more innocent era go, this beats getting misty over Roxette. The coming-of-age film had its American premiere in Telluride after bowing at the Jerusalem Film Festival, in the city where it was largely shot. Its loosely-based-on-a-true-story narrative concerns Eyad (Tawfeek Barhom) being sent off by his proud Arab parents to attend Jerusalem’s finest school; that his ex-activist dad dislikes Jews as much as the next guy isn’t even a factor. In study hall, he falls hard for...
- 9/2/2014
- by Chris Willman
- The Playlist
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