"The Lemon Tree" is a picture that deals with a "hot" subject in low-key, human terms, but fails to really connect on a human level. The leads all deliver solid performances but they don't have much to work with. Characters are drawn in subtle sketches, but the sketches fail to hint at anything other than sketches and there is less subtext than the dialogue's minimalism would suggest. The film attempts to draw parallels between the alienated Israeli minister's wife and the alienated Palestinian widow, but both characters are too passive to create any real drama and neither of them really change. The film even goes as far as to avoid showing on screen some of the characters' pivotal moments, which suggests that the writer-director didn't know his characters well enough to show us how they would behave. A film which appears to be about women on the sidelines of a conflict proves itself to be more about women who are on the sidelines of life itself, but it seems to believe it is making a statement about the nature of national conflicts. Politics kept this viewer interested during the film's short running time, but, politics aside, the film is a minor exercise in the display of pretty actresses and Judean landscapes. Pretty actresses and Judean landscapes nearly make this film worth the price of admission but in a year when Israel also produced "Waltz With Bashir," this one should barely register.
Review of Lemon Tree
