Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Claudio Carvalho In Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in Golan Heights on the Israeli-Syrian border, the Druze bride Mona (Clara Khoury) is engaged to get married with Tallel (Dirar Suleiman), a television comedian that works in the Revolution Studios in Damascus, Syria. They have never met each other because of the occupation of the area by Israel since 1967; when Mona moves to Syria, she will lose her undefined nationality and will never be allowed to return home. Mona's father Hammed (Makram J. Khoury) is a political activist pro-Syria that is on probation by the Israeli government. His older son Hatten (Eyad Sheety) married a Russian woman eight years ago and was banished from Majdal Shams by the religious leaders and his father. His brother Marwan (Ashraf Barhoum) is a wolf trader that lives in Italy. His sister Amal (Hiyan Abbass) has two teenager daughters and has the intention to join the university, but her marriage with Amin (Adnan Trabshi) is in crisis. When the family gathers for Mona's wedding, an insane bureaucracy jeopardizes the ceremony."The Syrian Bride" is an impressive movie, especially considering the nationality of the Israeli director Eran Riklis. I had no idea that in the twenty-first century could exist a place where people has "undefined nationality". The metaphoric situation of the Druze people, represented by the bride and her family, trapped in the non-sense bureaucracy, lack of interest from the governments in resolving the problem and having to face arrogant heartless authorities represented by the despicable chief of the Israeli police is amazing. The acting is top-notch, the plot is original and unique and I really loved this great movie. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "A Noiva Síria" ("The Syrian Bride")

lmahayni As an Arab-American who spent her childhood in the shadow of the Isreali occupied Golan Heights, I found many memories from my childhood coming back. How ridiculous the most simple task can become when politics enters the picture! Anyone who wants personal insight into the Isreali-Arab conflict, should watch this. It's about as realistic as it can get. This seemingly simple tale is fraught with all the obvious and subtle problems of a family and a community living under the restrictions of international politics. Whenever it starts to seem trite, it will surprise you with some detail or twist that reveals a depth that is never allowed to show on the surface. The plot is simple: a bride gets ready for her wedding... Not so simple, apparently.Is the policeman a heartless occupying force? Is the father an iceberg? Is a border officer capable of setting policy for his entire Nation? Can the hopes of one woman survive this emotional day? You'll explore these questions while you become attached to the characters engaged in this drama. The acting is seamless, the scripting spare, and the production value is appropriate to the story being told.The bottom line is that you should see this movie. If you watch it on DVD, be sure to watch the extras. The film was shot in Arabic and Hebrew (with a smattering of French and English), with English subtitles. Sometimes the subtitles flash by too quickly; but that's my only "major" complaint.

jeromec-2 This is an unexpectedly wonderful film, particularly if one follows Fox news and CNN Middle East comments.We think the Middle East is hotbed of ugly incidents: Rock throwing, name calling, hatred everywhere, sadness and terrible unrelenting tragedy that can never be fixed in an infinity of days nor all the American intervention in the world.This film is about a bride who will marry someone in Syria that she has never met. In reading the reviews, I have found that no one looks at the problem of the Bride (Mona). Most look at her older sister who wants to go to University. She wants to start over after being trapped in a loveless marriage with a husband who is cowardly. He is more concerned about the communities' opinion about the behavior of his family than the love his daughter is developing or the education his wife desires. Devastating, as this may seem it is nothing compared to what Mona faces.I may be wrong, but I picture Muslim families as being very close. It matters to sons when fathers are unhappy with them. It matters to mothers when they cannot hug their children and grand children. It matters when brothers and sisters cannot engage in friendly banter with other siblings. Mona sees a brother in Syria only able to communicate with the rest of the family by bullhorn across a man's land between Syria and Israel.Against this serious background, the movie spends a great deal of time poking fun at the bureaucracies in both countries. Rather than showing life threatening conflict, this film reduces the conflict to an absurdity where neither side can decide what to do about the stamp on a passport. One laughs, but it is not a very comfortable laughter. One has to realize that Mona, if she cannot cross the border, will be a terrible casualty of war. She will be unable to go back to the family she knows and loves; she will be unable to go forward to the husband she hopes will honor her and protect her. There will be no wedding, at the very minimum. I will leave the reader to discover what happens.The unexpected picture of this film is that the Israelis are shown to be humane and cooperative, as do the Syrian border guards, but only after they have saved face. We could never imagine that these antagonists have fought a number of bitter wars if this film was all we knew about the Middle East.This is not a film to be taken lightly. I do not find it sad: I find it hopeful. There is an uneasy truce between everyone except the sister and her husband. It's a wonderful antidote to Fox. Take it in.

Eyal Allweil I'm a big fan of Israeli cinema, and I'm often proud of my country's efforts. But The Syrian Bride didn't work for me. I wanted to like it, but it was too predictable, too superficial, and by the end I was both bored and unmoved. Hiam Abbass is excellent, though.I'd say the script was mediocre, but it could be that for an international audience the film will prove more appealing, since it does shed light in a clear and well-intentioned manner on the intricacies of the dilemmas of the Druze in the Golan Heights.To give a frame of reference, I thought that both Year Zero and Paradise Now were far better movies than the Syrian Bride.