The Syrian Bride
crosses barbed wire in white lace.
It would be a shame if the only people who made a point of taking in
The Syrian Bride
were those who already have an understanding of the Israel-occupied Golan Heights and its complex relationship to both Syria and Israel, or the relationship of the Druze religion to Islam. Israeli writer-director Eran Riklis (
On a Clear Day You Can See Damascus
) has taken some trouble to explicate historical matters in the
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dialogue and
mise en scène
; but his movie wears its heart on its sleeve, and ultimately doesn't require an elaborately articulated knowledge of Mideastern politics or geography to appreciate.
All that's important for us to grasp from the beginning is that the village of Majdal Shams is, for whatever reason, politically in limbo; it's a Druze community stranded in the Heights, whose residents inhabit a liminal space neither Syrian nor Israeli, neither Islamic nor Jewish. And so when the film's sloe-eyed young heroine Mona (Clara Khoury) wakes on the day of her arranged marriage to a Damascan television actor (Uri Gavriel), it's not just her wedding day-it's also the last day she will ever see any of her family members. When she leaves the Heights, and has her passport stamped for entry into Syria, she can never return to Israel as Israel defines itself-which includes the Golan Heights.
Amal has been married before, and unhappily, so she has ample cause to be despondent. Her older sister Amal (Hiam Abbass) does all she can to strengthen the younger woman's resolve, despite her own difficult marriage to Amin (Adnan Tarabshi), a traditionalist Druze man increasingly frustrated over his inability to keep his wife "under control." Mona literally wears the pants, in addition to driving the family car, supporting her rebellious teenaged daughter's love affair with an Israeli boy and applying to take a social-work degree at Haifa University.
Then there's the women's father, Hammed (Clara Khoury's real-life dad Makram Khoury), a pro-Syrian Druze recently released from prison and already under the watchful eye of both the village's Israeli police chief and the local Druze elders. He can't even attend Amal's wedding, which will be held right on the border. Finally, everyone's
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excited to see eldest son Hattem (Eyad Sheety) and to meet his wife and child-everyone but Hammed, who's disowned Hattem for marrying a Russian woman and moving to Tel Aviv.
Much of the film's open-mouthed beauty belongs to the Golan Heights themselves; most scenes are shot outdoors and all of them seem to be shot on location, Mediterranean and sere-not an unfamiliar bioregion if you're used to New Mexico, but the camera's dedicated attention renders the desert colors translucent, seen through heat shimmers. Syrian Bride also benefits from its strange, slow pacing; the last hour of the film is all but real-time, so that when Jeanne, the UN official assigned to handle the complicated passport details, goes back and forth between Syrian and Israeli customs, we can practically feel the heat, confusion and impatience right along with the bridal party standing in the sun, high heels starting to hurt, makeup melting. When the bride finally takes matters into her own hands, it's a plangent, profound choice, one with the full weight of women's choicelessness-and decades of political immobility-solidly behind it.
