The Syrian Bride
by Eran Riklis
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ashraf Barhom, Clara Khoury, Eyad Sheety, Hiam Abbass, Makram KhouryDirector: Eran Riklis
Brand: Koch International
Writer: Eran Riklis
Producer: Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre
Writer: Suha Arraf
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language); Hebrew (Original Language); Russian (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Content/Copy-Protected CD, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 97 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-06-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Koch Lorber Films
Movie Reviews of The Syrian Bride
Movie Review: Torn between two countries
Summary: 4 Stars
A very balanced, sensitive, well-acted film that clearly portrays the problems faced by the Druze community on the Golan with its own culture and secretive religion being overly strident. The Druze on the Golan lived within Syria until 67 and within Israel after 67, but with family now on both sides of the border, they can't show complete loyalty to either side without creating serious problems with the other side, especially as the border isn't necessarily permanently fixed. So they remain split by the current border and can only shout at relatives on the other side. While it's possible to leave one country one country for the other, it will never be possible to return. In the movie, the Syrian Bride is to marry a man on the Syrian side whom she's never met and what should be a time of celebration becomes one of great sorrow as well as she will have to say goodbye forever to her family on the Golan.
But the film doesn't particularly condemn either the Syrians or the Israelis, just their effect on the Druze who are separate from both. The Druze are equally bedeviled by both bureaucracies. While the father of the bride has spent time in Israeli prison for unspecified political offenses, the family has no problem hiring an Israeli to photograph the wedding celebration. Life for the family in the Golan remains heavily complicated due to the political situation, but it goes on. Not all of the problems presented in the film are political either. The film presents the family's personal problems in the community with the forbidden inter-religious marriage and the older daughter's efforts to step outside traditional women's boundaries in her relationship with her own husband. One could hardly ask for more in one film.
Summary of The Syrian Bride
Mona's wedding day is the saddest day of her life. She knows that once she crosses the border between Israel and Syria to get married, she will never be allowed back to her beloved family in the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. Once you cross the border there is no way back and at the end of a long day, the family, the government and military officials and all those gathered on both sides of the border find themselves facing an uncertain future, trapped in No-Man's land between Israel and Syria.Awards:
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; FIPRESCI Prize
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; Grand Prix des Am?riques
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; People's Choice Award
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
Winner 2004 Locarno International Film Festival; Audience Award
Winner 2004 Flanders International Film Festival; Audience Award
Winner 2004 Flanders International Film Festival; Best Screenplay
A statement about borders--and the absurdity of bureaucracy--The Syrian Bride strides sucessfully between tragedy and comedy. Mona (olive-eyed Clara Khoury, Rana's Wedding) is the bride. She lives in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights. According to the opening title, "Druze loyalty is split between Syria and Israel." Tallel (Derar Sliman), her husband-to-be, resides in Damascus. She has never met him--though she has seen him on TV (he's a soap star). Once Mona crosses into Syria, she won't be allowed to return. Hence her wedding day begins on a somber note. Mona's family has problems of its own. Political dissident father Hammed (Makram J. Khoury, Clara's real-life paterfamilias) has recently been released from jail, and it looks as if he may be sent back again (for defying parole). Older sister Amal (Paradise Now's Hiam Abbass, who steals the show with her slow-burning intensity) is experiencing her own marital strife, while her daughter is seeing a pro-Israeli Druze. As for Mona's brothers, Hammed refuses to speak to Hattem (Eyad Sheety), who moved to Russia eight years ago and has returned for the wedding, non-Muslim wife and son in tow. And just in from shady business dealing in Italy is Marwan (Ashraf Barhom), the family screw-up, i.e. a gap-toothed charmer devoid of scruples. Directed by Israel's Eran Riklis (Borders ) and co-written by Suha Arraf, a Palestinian-Israeli, The Syrian Bride takes an occasionally schematic, if admirably even-handed look at ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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