The Band's Visit

If you were stranded in a foreign land, with little idea where you were or where you were headed, what would you do? Flirt with a stranger, of course.

“Do you like Chet Baker?” the Egyptian man in a police uniform asks the lady behind the counter at the bus station.

“What?” she responds, confused.

“My funn-ay Val-ahn-than,” he sings as his colleagues look on incredulously.

This awkward moment­—the kind in which only one party realizes that the interaction is bizarre and the other believes they are behaving in a completely normal fashion—is characteristic of the tender Israeli comedy “The Band’s Visit.” In this much-lauded film, the eight members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra find themselves stranded in Israel when they take the wrong bus on their way to a performance. They are forced to spend the night with a café-owner and her friend. Naturally, there are some hilarious interactions between the lost visitors and their hosts. But when you laugh, you’re not sure if you’re laughing with or at the characters, or just laughing because you feel awkward about their awkwardness.

Since it brings together two peoples whose paths rarely cross, it’s no surprise that the movie is riddled with uncomfortable situations. Many of the characters are vaguely shy or withdrawn, communicating with each other in broken English. The connections they make are in unlikely places and between unlikely people: an unemployed man whose wife hates him and a second-string conductor who can’t seem to finish his concerto, for example, or an outspoken young woman and a formal old man.

But this is no “Lost in Translation.” It’s less a story about culture clash than it’s a story about people. The film does not arrive at the saccharine grand conclusion that traditionally antagonistic peoples ought to embrace one another in an amour humane. Nor is there even a strong suggestion that relationships between new lovers or friends will overcome historic cultural divides. The cleavages between people will probably always exist, but sometimes something as insignificant as a band’s visit can momentarily extend a shaky bridge across the gulfs that normally keep people apart.

The sincerity of this quirky little film is what carries it along. The acting, like much of the movie, is understated. It has no real plot to speak of, and to the extent that it moves at all, it moves slowly. The film is much like the sleepy Israeli town where the police band finds itself: few real events occur to punctuate the otherwise unchanging backdrop. The solitude of the town, the quiet of the film, is interrupted only by scattered dialogue and moments of fleeting connection between characters.

Ultimately, we are left with the sense that we are probably all a little stranded. Self-reflection often takes place only when we encounter others; only when faced with other lonely people do we realize how lonely we are ourselves. And yet, by helping us come to this realization, “The Band’s Visit” may paradoxically help us feel a little less stranded, after all.

—Staff writer Anjali Motgi can be reached at amotgi@fas.harvard.edu.