Review of Tel Aviv on Fire

I came across Tel Aviv on Fire on Netflix and knew instantly I wanted to watch it. I was delighted by the premise of a Palestinian soap opera writer churning out melodrama with the help of his unlikely collaborator the Israeli checkpoint officer. The scenes of the soap "Tel Aviv on Fire" are hilariously over the top. I laughed when another reviewer mentioned the "pathetic" Young and the Restless as an example of the genre: I'm a big fan of American schlockfests such as the Young and the Restless' sister soap the Bold and the Beautiful which also features terrible acting and outlandish plotlines. I also loved Sunset Beach which made fun of itself, daytime drama and popular culture. I enjoyed seeing the portrayals of daily life for the main characters particularly Salam, his girlfriend Mariam and her father who owns a local shop. As the Israeli fans of the soap within the film say, not everything has to be political. The dark turn when Assi has Salam kidnapped and then threatens him with a gun lets the film down. I wanted like Salam for the story to avoid cliche, and I really hoped that Salam and Assi would become friends as well as script writing collaborators, while Rachel and Yehuda ("his name is Yehuda" snorts Assi: the word for "Jew" in Arabic is Al Yehudi, and Yehuda in Hebrew also means "the people of Israel" ) would marry and find peace and happiness together. I wasn't convinced that Assi could so easily become an actor on Palestinian television, but I see that the film found a way to suggest that while the Israeli and Palestinian characters continued to struggle on TV there might be a way forward to peace and understanding in reality. I came to the film as a supporter of Israel. I appreciated the scenes revealing life from the Palestinian point of view: having to go through checkpoints, the checking of IDs, not being able to travel easily. I also appreciated the view of Palestinian life from ordinary people running shops and working in hospitals as well as the international diva and the crew of the TV company and its sets which look tiny and pokey in comparison to American productions. I wish Tel Aviv on Fire showed more Israeli characters aside from the hammy Assi. But overall it does a fine job showing the people and the lives behind the headlines and sending up the melodramatizing of history into the Struggle. I'm looking forward to seeing Tel Aviv on Fire come back for a sequel.