Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark

A man and a woman sit on a bench in what passes for a “park” in this small town somewhere in the middle of the Israeli desert. It’s evening. The man is the conductor of a small ceremonial orchestra employed by the Egyptian police force—they’ve been booked to play at the opening of an Arab cultural centre, but they’ve accidentally taken a bus to a city with a soundalike name. He looks a little foolish in his immaculate powder blue uniform—he has the air of a fussy, detail-oriented middle manager rather than a leader of men, and it’s obvious that his musicians tolerate him more than they respect him. Still, he’s a decent guy, and there’s something soulful about him too that appeals to the woman, the proprietress of the local diner, whose dark, sensuous beauty is like an oasis in this bleak setting.

She makes small talk, asking him what it’s like to conduct music, to be the centre of attention. It looks like the most important thing in the world, she says.

No, he replies—communicating, like the woman, in slightly imperfect English, since she doesn’t speak Arabic and he doesn’t speak Hebrew. The most important thing in the world is fishing.

“Fishing!” she exclaims. “But it’s so boring!”

No, no, no, he says, it’s not boring at all. For perhaps the first time in the movie, we see the man—Tawfiq is his name—allow himself to smile. Gently and simply, he describes the peace that exists when you’re fishing—the sound of the waves, of the bait hitting the water, maybe some children playing in the distance. It’s like a symphony, he says, and again, underneath that meticulously trimmed mustache, a small smile of pleasure flashes across his face.

“And what about the fish?” asks the woman, whose name is Dina. “You cook it?”

“Well,” he chuckles, “usually I don’t catch. But sometimes I just put them back to the water.” There’s a slight pause as a shadow crosses his face. “Before, when my wife was alive, I used to take them home and she used to cook. But now, I just... put them back.”

The Israeli film The Band’s Visit is full of exquisitely beautiful scenes like that one, in which the characters never seem closer than when they’re describing just how lonely they are. The film is being marketed as a comedy—and indeed, the sight of the Egyptian musicians marching across the featureless desert landscape in uniforms the colour of Secret deodorant is the kind of quirky fish-out-of-water image that suggests a Middle Eastern version of Napoleon Dynamite. But there’s an undercurrent of sadness to these characters’ lives that keeps welling up to the surface. Even the film’s funniest sequence—a sort of silent, deadpan Cyrano de Bergerac routine in which the handsomest band member coaches a shy villager on how to make the moves on the girl sitting next to him—somehow manages to seem a little bit sad, even though it’s set in a roller disco.

I can’t say enough good things about the two leads. As Tawfiq, Sasson Gabai lets you see the vulnerability underneath a character who initially seems like a stuffy martinet—there are hints throughout the film that the police force will soon disband the orchestra, and you can’t imagine what Tawfiq will do if that happens. It’s like that ridiculous uniform is the only thing holding him up—and in the lovely final scene, when you hear him sing, you can see how much joy he takes in performing.

And as Dina, Ronit Elkabetz is fascinating the moment she comes onscreen. There’s a knowingness in her eyes, an amused expression on her lips—you can’t imagine how a woman this exciting wound up living in a town so lacking in stimulation. You never find out much about Dina’s history, but it’s probably better that way—that aura of mystery suits her. Black is definitely her colour, but you can understand why, for the few hours in which the film takes place anyway, she’s drawn to powder blue.