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Published: 17 June 2010
by DAN CARRIER

THIS enthralling offering from the Kentish Town-based film company Vertigo takes you into the back streets and homes of the people living in Jaffa’s Ajami neighbourhood.

It is a hard place to rub along in peace, with centuries-old politics and religion giving set forms of behaviour. It is coming to terms with what society expects of you, the demands placed on your shoulders, which is the driving force behind a skilfully woven and tragic tale.

We meet 13-year-old Nasri, a skilled artist ­creating a graphic diary-storyboard of the trials of his young life. In a horrible opening scene, we watch a gunman on a moped pull up next to another changing the tyre on a car, open fire and kill.

It brings us quickly into the main crux of the tale. Nasri’s older brother Omar has the world’s troubles on his back: he was the target of the gunman. We learn his uncle has wounded a prominent member of a local Druize family, who had come into his café, firing a gun in the air and demanding protection money. A feud erupts and Omar’s family are the targets. In a film where no shot is wasted, we watch Omar’s family ask for a form of negotiated blood payment to end the fight, and get the larger, more scary family off their backs. 

Then we meet Palestinian Malek, who has slipped out of a refugee camp to work illegally in an Israeli café, desperate to raise funds to help pay for his sick mother’s urgently needed surgery. He has been taken under the wing of big-time Ajami character, Abu Elias, who is happy to use Malek’s plight to get a cheap worker, while also making out he is doi­ng the refugee a favour.

Theirs is a relationship of servitude, as so many in the film are: the exploitation of the weak by the strong is a continuing theme. Through working for Abu Elias, Malek befriends Omar and his party-loving friend Binj, who also finds his freedom curtailed by the wider issues of Jaffa society. In love with a Jewish girl, he dreams of living a carefree life in Tel Aviv. 

Thrown into this brilliantly crafted and observed plot is Dando, a Jewish policeman whose life has been turned upside down when his brother, a conscript in the army, disappears.

Split into chapters, the film takes you through a variety of stories that link up these disparate characters in surprising ways. It is the sort of film-making Robert Altman did so well, and with a superlative cast, realistically shot, I was utterly engrossed. The cast is made up of unknowns, Ken Loach style, who spent 10 months together. Many had similar backgrounds to the roles they were playing, and their characters crafted by the directors to reflect their own life experiences. Even the police officers in the film were former coppers. It makes for some superb performances.