Turn Left at the End of the World (2004)

Diversity, Israeli-style

This film, set in a dusty 1960s Negev town inhabited by Moroccan and Indian Jewish immigrants, should forever dispel the absurd notion that Israel's Jewish populace now or ever composed a homogenious race.

When te large Jewish Talkar family arrives from Mumbai (then Bombay), their literate, worldly teenage daughter Sarah (Liraz Charchi) immediately begins keeping her journal, despite warnings from her new Moroccan Jewish acquaintance, Nicole (Netta Garti), that the Negeve community offers nothing to write about.

Meanwhile, Sarah's father Roger (Parmeet Sethi) comes to work in the town's only employment source---a soda bottling factory---dressed in the white business suit he was expected to wear in Bombay offices. All the while the French-speaking Moroccans, themselves also hailing from an upper crust of their native society, ridicule the Indians for their form of dress, their many children and their attitudes. Nicole's mother Jeannette (Ruby Porat Shoval) voices especially harsh criticism of the Indians, discouraging her daughter from visiting them.

No in this desert environment expects Indian and Moroccan Jews to get along. But Sarah and Nicole defy these predictions and form a close friendship, at the instigation of Moroccan widow Simone (Aure Atika), who sets Nicole on the newcomers like a spy. The girls' friendship is real enough, although unbeknownst to her, Sarah's father Roger cozies up Simone and establishes a hot affair.

During all the personal intrigue, the film also explores the bottling workers' relations between one another and their absentee bosses, who refuse to give them a raise despite rampant inflation. The workers agree to go on strike, but rather than capitulate, the company shutters the factory all together, leaving everyone in the community---Moroccan snobs and Indian newcomers alike---bereft and impoverished.

The story is full of ironic developments and strange outcomes, including the attraction of news reporters to the workers' plight by---of all things---the Indians' organization of a local cricket team.

This is a delightful film, and will educate viewers about the surprising racial and ethnic diversity of Jewish people even in the Jewish state.

---Alyssa A. Lappen June 23, 2008

Culture clash & coming of age in Israel

I saw the movie in the theatre a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. To be fair, the movie is more sexually explicit than it needs to be to tell its story, then again that is not a negative for some viewers.

It tells a good story of discrimination between two groups, the Moroccan Jews and the Indian Jews in a tiny town in the desert. It is also about the friendship between two teen-aged girls, Sarah (Indian) and Nicole (Moroccan) in that town. The girls become fast friends despite their differences in personality and their different ethnic backgrounds.

We get the story of a labor dispute at the only employer for both the Moroccans and Indians, and how each group deals with it - the differences separating the two communities, despite their common circumstances, how they try to work together, and again are torn apart.

There is marital infidelity and sexual awakening among both the girls and the boys, how they cope with it, and the emptiness of some of their solutions.

It ends up being both funny and redemptive. June 12, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...