In 1930s' Tel Aviv, Tom Wilkin is a British police officer. He considers himself well-integrated with the local Jewish population, with plenty of Jewish friends and even a Jewish lover - fiery, politically-active Shoshana Borochov. His opposite number in Jerusalem is Geoffrey Morton, a blinkered officer who coolly stages mock executions in order to discover Arab arms caches. When Wilkin's boss is assassinated, Morton is brought in to replace him, but the methods which worked for him with the Arabs of Jerusalem are not so successful with the Jews of Tel Aviv.
Given the extreme political nature of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (I watched this film in October 2023, just a few days after Hamas militants staged an incursion into Israel ultimately resulting in the deaths of thousands on both sides), I found this relatively even-handed. Both the Jewish and Arab communities are shown as producing victim and villain alike. We see Jewish militants being prepared to sacrifice innocent women and children, and other Jews trying to convince them otherwise. The film's heroine, Borochov, is herself portrayed as morally ambiguous, prepared to report on an informer when she may well have known that by so doing she was sentencing him to death.
The British do not come off well, with even Wilkin, portrayed by Douglas Booth as being quite likeable, falling back on the "it's my job" defence when challenged by Borochov. Harry Melling's Morton is little more than a pantomime villain, all monotone delivery and extreme attitudes. And it is noticeable that the film contains no featured Arab character, just several one-line extras.
How accurate the portrayals are of these real people I do not know (and I always feel it disrespectful to show sex scenes of people who have not long been dead - when this film was made Borochov had been dead not even twenty years). As a work of entertainment it is a success, though, and perhaps challenges the viewer to ponder what he would do if caught up in similar circumstances.
Given the extreme political nature of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (I watched this film in October 2023, just a few days after Hamas militants staged an incursion into Israel ultimately resulting in the deaths of thousands on both sides), I found this relatively even-handed. Both the Jewish and Arab communities are shown as producing victim and villain alike. We see Jewish militants being prepared to sacrifice innocent women and children, and other Jews trying to convince them otherwise. The film's heroine, Borochov, is herself portrayed as morally ambiguous, prepared to report on an informer when she may well have known that by so doing she was sentencing him to death.
The British do not come off well, with even Wilkin, portrayed by Douglas Booth as being quite likeable, falling back on the "it's my job" defence when challenged by Borochov. Harry Melling's Morton is little more than a pantomime villain, all monotone delivery and extreme attitudes. And it is noticeable that the film contains no featured Arab character, just several one-line extras.
How accurate the portrayals are of these real people I do not know (and I always feel it disrespectful to show sex scenes of people who have not long been dead - when this film was made Borochov had been dead not even twenty years). As a work of entertainment it is a success, though, and perhaps challenges the viewer to ponder what he would do if caught up in similar circumstances.