Misanthropic comedy from Palestine about hostilities and conflicts both intramural and across the Israeli border. It permits us if nothing else to reacquaint ourselves with the pleasures of composition, perspective, camera angle, the filmmaking basics. A tetchier Tati, director Elia Suleiman (who also appears as the, or a, central character) achieves a marvelous and rejuvenating variety in his coverage of an event or locale, coming at it from several angles of attack, each as scrupulously planned as the last. (The terraced backyard divided by cinder-block walls and fronted by a chain-link fence appears to have been photographed from the ideal vantage point when we first see it -- squared up to the plane of the screen, a perfect fit -- but the higher angle the second time pumps new life, new air, into it.) The largely static camera, especially in the first half before the elaborate choreography at a military checkpoint, exudes a satisfaction with every set-up, and with good reason. The gags, or pokes in the ribs, or whacks on the funny bone (the implied violence is intended), are unforced and unhurried, oftentimes reliant on tactics of delay and repetition: the daily ritual of pitching a sack of garbage over a neighbor's wall, or the obligation of defending one's property from nightly firebombs or errant soccer balls. Nevertheless, the fragmented narrative has a hard time holding the attention past the first half-hour or so, and the increasing obscurity, absurdity, whimsy, and fantasy have a limited, a specialized, appeal. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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