User Reviews

Eran Riklis manages a touching humanist film that should engage and expand both sides of the Arab/Jewish divide in Israel — and beyond.

It follows a bright young Arab boy Eyad, whose intelligent father — consigned by his earlier political activity to a career as fruit-picker — gets him into the country's premier Jewish high school. With that family as its centre the film obviously reveals the Arabs' difficulties in the (understandably) wary Jewish country. The Arabs make up 20% of the population, so they understandably chafe at soldiers checking their IDs and teachers' snide remarks and the conviction the system is prejudiced against them. Arabs steam in the kitchen while the Jewish boys get the better paying jobs as waiters. As Eyad's father summarizes it, "We want to live in dignity."

Eyad's experience broadens when a community service project leads him into a friendship with Ionathan, a Jewish boy crippled with MS. He also has an affair with a bright, pretty Jewish student, Naomi, whose parents pull her out of the school to end their contact. To enable her to return, Eyad gallantly leaves the special school and studies for his exams on his own, while working in restaurants. His father disowns him in anger and disappointment.

Riklis is careful to present the Jews' perspective as well. An Arab teacher teaches the map of Palestine — denying Israel — then unrolls the Israel map when the Jewish principal enters. Eyad's father and friends are certain Saddam Hussein will repel the US attack and destroy Israel in a few days. His mother knows better. The Arabs dance on their rooftops when they see the scud missiles fired at Israel.

But that image does not explain the title. As Riklis told the Palm Springs festival audience, he had two other contexts in mind. Mainly the phrase suggests the Arabs' restriction to servicing (figuratively: dancing for) the Jews, whether in the kitchens or cleaning up their mess (as Eyad more heroically does for his stricken Jewish friend). He also recalled the Jewish proverb about not being able to swing one behind at two weddings at the same time. Servant Eyad is indeed torn between two dances, the Arab and the Jewish, when he ventures beyond his enclave. At school his summary of the 1948 war is the Jewish version, unshaded, but in a later discussion of Jewish contemporary fiction he details the conventions of Arab stereotypy.

The two boys' mothers provide the film's moral center. Eyad's Arab mother — who has the stereotype Jewish nose — tacitly supports her son's love affair with the Jewish girl. Her concerns give way to her love and support. Ionathan's mother embraces Eyad for the comfort and life he brings her worsening son. When Ionathan nears the end, Eyad uses his passport to assume his Jewish identity, getting a waiter's job, then opens a bank account in his name to deposit the checks. Ionathan's mother is initially disturbed to discover that ploy, but when she confronts him she immediately softens at his need and promises to keep his secret. In response Eyad writes the high school exams both in his own name and in Ionathan's, securing both their graduations with identical honours.

Eyad loses his beloved grandmother. Naomi denies him to win a spot on the Special Intelligence army unit. Eyad goes to university in Berlin, returning for Ionathan's last days. Then comes the film's astonishing climax. It's completely unexpected and yet perfectly inevitable. Ionathan's mother gives her son a Muslim burial under Eyad's name, to enable Eyad to pursue his life under her son's name, freed from the stigma of being an Arab.

As Eyad's mother accepted her son having a Jewish lover, Ionathan's embraced her son's Arab friend. She asks him to live with them to ease her strain. Her climactic gesture reverses but fulfills the remarkable prophecy by Golda Meir: There will not be peace until the Arabs decide they love their children more than they hate the Jews. Both boys mothers' realize that; Naomi's doesn't.

The message is that peace will be impossible unless both sides abandon their traditions of hatred and war. This Jewish mother abandons her religious tradition, turns her back on the past, to ensure a better future for the next generation of Jew and Arab together. We know her feeling for her Judaism from their sabbath dinner with Eyad. So we gauge the sacrifice she makes for her son's friend. Of course, in assuming the Jewish identity Eyad also abandons his past, including his family and culture. So profound is the schism that only a break with the past will bridge it. Eyad's elementary school is visited by a fatuous presenter of some Children for Peace movement. The film's climax plays out the deeper implications of that hope.

This movie has many good points and one obvious flaw. The good points are its production, acting and story. Dancing Arabs captures perfectly the Israel of each time it portrays and the two solitudes that Jews and Arabs live in. Israeli Arabs and Jews may have lived in the same land for 50 years (the years portrayed) but still don't trust or even respect each other. Today, the situation is even worse. That is the main message of the movie and the message comes across well and relatively unbiased.

The flaw that keeps it from receiving a higher rating from me is the ending. It's fair enough that Eyad tries to escape the discrimination that Israeli Arabs suffer by taking the identity of his Jewish friend, Yonatan who dies from ALS. It's clever enough to "kill" Eyad by burying Yonatan as Eyad the Arab. Edna, Yonatan's mother goes along with this in her grief to have a son. The book must have some other tricks to make the deception work because people don't die in Israel without an official death certificate being registered. With Yonatan officially dead on state computers, Eyad would be caught sometime down the road when he tried to transact some kind of official business.

My bet is that he would be caught on his way out of Israel to resume his German studies by the army's computer checking to see if he had done his National Service. The real Yonatan would have had an exemption because of his disability yet there he would be walking around ben Gurion Airport with a knapsack. This would not compute. I need to read the book to see how the author got around that one.

Making a film in Israel with Palestinians is problematic. After all, the film could be seen as either too pro-Jewish or too pro- Palestinian by some and as a result, lose a major portion of the potential audience. However, "A Borrowed Identity" manages to create a story that both sides of the ideological perspective could appreciate and enjoy.

The story is about a Palestinian boy, Eyad. You see him grow to his teen years through the first portion of the film and he's so bright that he's offered admission to the best school in Israel--and he'll be the only Palestinian in an otherwise all Jewish program. The film follows the young man through high school from his early awkward time to acceptance by his peers until he ultimately does something a Palestinian isn't supposed to do--fall in love with a Jewish girl. At first, things look great for Eyad and his girlfriend, Naomi. However, she is hesitant to tell her parents about her boyfriend and he's also hesitant to tell his family as well. When he loses her over this, he decides on another path...and it involves pretending to be Jewish so that his life will be easier.

There is a lot to like about this film as is touches on some divisive topics. It's not just the Palestinian/Jewish conflict but there's also a subplot involving quality of life issues for a friend of Eyad. Yonathan has Multiple Sclerosis and through the course of the movie, he becomes less and less functional until he's just a shell of who he once was. All of this makes for a fascinating film that I enjoyed and which was mostly well crafted. I say mostly because Eyad was played so incredibly detached and non-emotive through so much of the film--a bit too much for me, as this tended to make him seem less real. But the good far outweighs the bad with this one and it's a film that is totally unique and captivating.

Not the best way to tackle a topic about identity. The first act of the movie differs in huge ways from the last and despite a light touch of wry humour applied to the scenes between both, you cannot help but wonder how the one (d)evolved into the other so distinctly. Opening on a comedic tone bordering on the absurd, at the end of the film you're watching a heavy emotional drama about a young man's life altered forever. Of course people change over the years, especially under the less than perfect conditions the protagonist lives through, but the viewer has a hard time accepting the unfolding of events in the way told here, and ultimately feels like he/she is watching two separate movies slapped together. It's not wrong to apply some humour to a topic otherwise devoid of that sense, especially if it helps to underscore both parties have more in common than apart. But it must feel like a coherent whole to make it work for audiences. In some ways, the writer says that any sense of optimism Israeli Arab youths harbour in their country will only be squashed by the rampant discrimination they undergo in their formative years, and thus they will inevitably end up as unhappy, pessimist young adults. Maybe that is exactly what the screenwriter wants us to think, considering it's the conclusion he himself drew eventually, which made him move to the USA for good. At the same time however, the plot tells us there is plenty of positive things that could have avoided the bleak outcome presented here. It's not like the protagonist didn't have any friends or couldn't find love. Eventually, it was his own choices that hindered his career as much, if not more so, as the social exclusion on which the film closes.

It's not the Arabs that are dancing in this film, it's the writing that makes the plot dance around various possible outcomes and makes it pick the bleakest where it need not have, and considering the tone of the opening, should not have. Case in point: the life of the writer himself, who did very well in his career despite very similar conditions. And it's the audience that suffers most, by being offered a rather unsettling and unsatisfying close.

In my mind, this movie was well acted, but I just can't get over one major plot hole that for me turns this movie into a work of total make believe. Please read the other reviews for a recap of the story line. I understand Eyad borrows his friend Yonatan's identity so he can find a better job, and he does. Yonatan's mother discovers the "borrowed identity" and is okay with it.

So far, even I am okay with it. But, people do not live totally in a bubble, especially in Israeli society. Yonatan's mom must have some other relatives who are concerned about her son's health. And even if there is not one relative, Israeli neighbors can be quite close. Not one neighbor inquires about Yonatan? Not one other classmate cares to ask about Yonatan. According to this movie, the mom and Eyad (now Yonatan) conspire to get Yonatan buried as Eyad. Yes, of course, I should have seen this coming. This Jewish mom allows her son to be buried as Eyad. No family members or neighbors attend, because the burial is not in Israel, it is in Fantasyland.

I do want to say this movie does some good things. It looks at relationships and beliefs and family pressures both Jews and Arabs face. It shows Jews and Arabs do get along on certain levels. Some of the characters were a bit cartoonish for me, but others were done with compassion and thought. It is a difficult subject, but I simply cannot get past the permanent identity change and the burial scene.

Wow. Not only is the script a seamless combination of Sayed Kashua's two novels (Second Person Singular and Dancing Arabs), but it's seamless in its own right. Eyad is such a sensitive character, as is Edna; both elicit our sympathy without our pity -- especially when Eyad "goes entrepreneurial" at school, capitalizing on his ability to straddle two worlds.

I also liked the acerbic wink at coexistence efforts. Riklis nailed it.

Great acting and camera work, excellent subtitling. The use of the word "previous" to illustrate Eyad's grappling with his Arab accent was spot on. I'm also gratified by the English title; "Borrowed Identity" expresses the plot line so much better than does "Dancing Arabs". Regarding the latter, I take issue with other reviewers who read symbolism into the title; in my view, it refers quite literally to Eyad's family dancing on the roof during the Scud attacks, a known occurrence. The fact that he declines to join them says it all.

The relationship between Eyad and Yonatan was also done beautifully, showing how when dealing with severe disability, identities like "Jew" and "Arab" are dwarfed by more immediate, human concerns. The film did an excellent job of showing this. Highly recommended.

I've lived in Israel for many years an see things from a Jewish Israeli point of view. It was interesting to see this movie about this conflicted young man. I appreciate the honesty of the script writer about the hostility many Arabs feel toward the Jews.(In Israel most Israeli arabs pretend this hostility doesn't exist)

I also liked the unexpected story line and the teens relationship with the sick boy's family. I feel like this movie needs to have a continuation. Now that he has a new identity, it would be interesting to see how his life evolves.

The only thing I didn't like was the constant discussion about his Arab identity. There are other way to show hostility, without actually repeating the same cliché.

I'll explain this to people who don't speak Hebrew: When the Arab boy first goes to the Jewish school, he has a strong accent. The kids laugh at him. Later his accent disappears and he speaks Hebrew just like other Israelis.

'Dancing Arabs', the Israeli film made in 2014 by Eran Riklis on a script written by Sayed Kashua adapting his debut novel includes some memorable scenes. One of them, which I do not hesitate to declare brilliant, succeeds in less than a minute to describe one of the sources of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The scene takes place in a school in an Arab city in Israel. The teacher gives a lesson to students by using a map of Palestine and using the Arab narrative of history. The school principal enters the classroom with an American visitor. In a fraction of a second, the teacher covers the map with another, where the same territory is called Israel, and changes the explanation to the official Israeli version. A scene worthy of Ephraim Kishon. Two peoples claim the same territory and both regard it as their homeland. Each of them has its own version of history, completely divergent versions. Parallel realities, virtual identities, the dialogue seems impossible.

Eran Riklis, the Israeli Jewish director, and Sayed Kashua, the Arab Israeli scriptwriter, are trying to explore in their film this exact theme: are dialogue and coexistence possible despite historical, religious and nationalist conflicts? Perhaps an elite school in Israel, a country that aspires to be pluralist and democratic can provide a framework for the formation of generations that overcome conflicts through reason, knowledge, love for truth and beauty? Perhaps the love story between two teenagers will break the walls of mistrust and melt the hearts of others around, including their parents? Or maybe the solidarity and compassion for those affected by incurable diseases will help others overcome the artificial barriers between people who are otherwise surprisingly similar in many ways? The greatest achievement of the film is that Riklis and Kashua manage to tackle these delicate and painful subjects with humor and without dogmatism. The story of the young boy from Tira coming to study in the Jerusalem elite school is beautifully told on the screen and is moving at many moments. But the conclusion is far from optimistic. The very solution proposed by the book and the script of the film is an renunciation, a concession that not everyone who lives here is ready to do, or some may accept only on a personal level. The story tells us that coexistence and even survival are only possible through a change of identity. Some of those who wrote about the film noticed that the solution does not seem plausible for Israel in the years 1989-1992 when most of the film is taking place, and even less so today. I do not think the film's authors did not know that. On the contrary, proposing a slightly utopian solution, I think they just wanted to achieve the opposite effect - to show that overcoming the conflict is only possible by adopting solutions that at one time or another would seem unrealistic.

The first part of the film has many comic scenes, especially in the sequences describing the stereotypes used by the two peoples in the description of history and in the relationships between them, and their outcome in everyday life. In the background, the tragic events of the first intifada are permanently present, but the tone succeeds to be relaxed while punctuating some important truths, without being escapist, vulgar or rhetorical. The second part leaves the place to something close to soap opera, but this does not seem out of context either, this being after all a very popular genre in the Middle East. What also helps is the very exact acting of the young actors team, supported by better known Jewish and Arab actors, among whom Yaël Abecassis cannot be skipped. 'Dancing Arabs' is a film worth seeing or seeing again five years after its realization, with the regret that the reasons of optimism about what is happening in this part of the world have not multiplied in the meantime.