The Band's Visit

On the surface, Kolirin is trying to give levity to the angry political climate in his part of the world through quirky characterization and laughter; in reality, the film is just proof that any other country's independent film can be as quaint and dull as America's.

A very, very touching film. It's funny in many places but also very sad and honest and it really makes you care a lot for its characters.

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.

This is a great movie with an excellent cast and an amazing main actor. I wish everyone would look at this subject the way the director did.

Odd mixture of bleakness and levity. Some pretty heavy stuff is dealt with but it does lapse into cliches unfortunately.

The Band's Visit successfully interweaves humor into a quietly arresting and elegiac tale of ordinary people from varying cultural backrounds dealing similarly with failed aspirations, frustrations, and tons of loneliness.

Funny movie about Egyptian orchestra lost in dead city of Israel. There is a lot of small moments of life. Ronit Elkabetz as a restaurant owner is brilliant choise for a woman who is seeking entertainment from boredom. But movie does not grow larger than that. Fresh, enjoyable and worth to see between all American movies.

A slow, whimsical Dramedy filled with quirky awkward moments. I really liked the music and the stuffy main male lead. The story was really interesting and didn't over stay it's welcome thanks in part to it's short running time.

A very sweet, comedic movie, which seems like it is going to be about travel, cultural and language barriers, and politics, but turns out to be about relationships, family and life in general. The characters initially are not too appealing, but as time goes by they come out of their shells nicely. There are some brilliantly memorable scenes such as the roller disco, which could function as short movies on their own. Well directed and acted, doesn't aim too high, and reminiscent of "Le Concert".

I'm sorry. But it was just too weird for me.

A very subtle and amusing story of an egyptian traditional orchestra lost somewhere in Isreal. The director, fascinated by arabic music, decided to tell a story not only featuring it, by also resembling it - one very reserved in form, but grave and emotional in content.

From now on i love Chet Baker too.

Quietly sublime.

A promising concept, nice set-up, good performances (Elkabetz the stand-out) but ends up feeling just a little flimsy and inconsequential. The rollerskating rink sequence is a wonderful mini-film.

que coisa é essa Ronit Elkabetz!

"A tender, poignant allegory for Arab-Israeli tensions that never makes a single overt gesture toward articulating its larger concerns." - Nick Schager

excellent..love it

The only good part of this movie is the woman from the restaurant who for some strange reason picks out the leader of the bad who is a rigid, joyless stick in the mud. She has a sexy accent, was extroverted and so was very interesting. The entire rest of the cast was awful. Half of them seem almost retarded or perhaps repressed? I found this movie almost pointless and not really very entertaining.

Slight. I love the premise and Gabai and Elkabetz are top-notch actors, but this could have been better made. More naturalism would have helped; instead, a lot of it is cheap, off-the-shelf drama, the usual cliches for pulling heartstrings and comic reliefs, and it shies away from any meaningful confrontation with its own political subtext. Still, it's not a BAD movie.

It's a very simple movie, an Egyptian Police Band wanders around a small Isreali town and not much else. It's nice, subtle, very well shot and very well acted, but I wanted more than just a short 87 minute, mildly quirky, slice-of-life piece. But still, it really has some great scenes, a few laughs and is worth watching.

Catching story, direction, picturisation

Not an unpleasant experience but too quiet. So quiet it says nothing actually

Good movie, the slow pace fits the story. My biggest problem was the conflating of accents and dialects. The actors speak with a Palestinian dialect and accent most of the time which is understandable since Egyptian actors are pretty much not able to go to Israel. But in a few scenes the actors put on a Cairene accent which totally took me out of the movie. Either go all the way with the accent or ignore it, half-and-half is worse than nothing.

Simply wonderful! It could almost have been an Australian movie: quiet, filled with awkward pauses and meaningful silences, cultural conflict and satire, real believable characters. Beautiful, poignant, funny.