AFI FEST Los Angeles International Film Festival 2009

It is difficult to find metaphors that capture the complex essence of the greater Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or of Israel’s internal Jewish-Arab clash. The impasse seems existential in nature. This is why, of the many films about the situation, Scandar Copti’s and Yaron Shani’s AJAMI is so remarkable. This muscular, intensely realistic depiction of urban battles on the streets of Ajami, a city marbled with cultural and religious divisions, echoes the larger regional tensions. The story follows a moment of bloodletting that sends ripples through a rainbow of characters, and the film marks a notable development in Israeli cinema, with documentary and fiction meshing (co-directors Copti (a Palestinian) and Shani (an Israeli) cast from a pool of local amateurs). Their dizzying, time-shifting narrative creates a destabilizing atmosphere that’s both literary and somehow precisely apt for a world of sustained, macho-fueled chaos.

–Robert Koehler