LEMON TREE (Israel/Germany/France) 2008 PG
Monday, 27th April 2009

Directed by Erin Riklis from a screenplay by Suhia Arraf and himself. Photography (Colour): Rainer Klausmann. Music: Habib Shehadeh Hanna. Length: 106 mins.
With: HIAM ABBASS (Salma Zidane), RONA LIPAZ-MICHAEL (Mira Navon), ALI SULIMAN (Ziad Daud), DORON TAVORY (Israel Navon, Israeli Defence Minister).
Hiam Abbass is remarkable as the Palestinian widow who fights for her right to cultivate her property when the Israelis try to deny her on security grounds. A very human and involving story.
“A beguiling parable. This may be the most mesmerising performance by any film actress this year” – Daily Telegraph. “Deeply moving masterwork of humanitarian cinema*****” – Film Review.


On paper Lemon Tree, our final film, being another Israeli work about the conflict between the Israelis and their Arab neighbours might seem to be something of a repetition in a season also containing Waltz With Bashir but the two works could not be more different. Approval for The Band’s Visit shown in last year’s Mini-Season confirmed how pleasing it always is to see a work portraying both Israelis and Palestinians in human terms, stories which lament the conflict in the Middle East by featuring ordinary individuals caught up in that situation. This new Israeli film is from Eran Riklis who as long ago as 1992 embraced that approach in his feature Cup Final and here, working with Suha Arraf who describes herself as a Palestinian-Israeli, he has found a compelling tale with a great role for Hiam Abbass. She plays Salma, a widow in her forties with three grown-up children. This woman, living on the border between Israeli and the occupied West Bank, continues to cultivate the grove of lemon trees on her property inherited from her late husband. However, when the Israeli Defence Minister and his wife move into a house adjoining the grove, this area comes to be regarded as potential cover for any terrorist attack and an order is made to seize the land. Salma, however, chooses to fight this and finds a lawyer ready to assist her. While the Defence Minister is not presented as a monster, it is his wife who, looking out of their property and seeing Salma, understands the other woman’s feelings and her wish to preserve what had belonged to her family. The audience may be unsure whether or not Salma can win her case but the human drama is such that all of us will hope that she can. Common humanity makes us desire a happy ending for this tale but it could be that reality will deny us this.

Programme Note by Mansel Stimpson