The complexities of the political situation in Lebanon in the early ‘80s are not easily unravelled, and director Eran Riklis doesn’t pretend to try here, despite returning to the scarred ground he depicted in the allegorical Lemon Tree (2008).
Instead, this naïve if sweet tale of a shot-down Israeli fighter pilot (Stephen Dorff) reluctantly befriending a spirited Palestinian orphan (Abdallah El Akal) morphs from a harsh look at life (and death) in the Palestinian camps to a woolly plea for us all just to get along and see the humanity in each other.
It’s sentimental stuff, but its heart is in the right place.
