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FREE ZONE Send This Review to a Friend
Amos Gitai’s “Free Zone” is a muddled, boring attempt to say something dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Natalie Portman plays Rebecca, an American whom we meet when she is sitting in a car and getting increasingly distraught. She breaks down in tears, although we never learn exactly why things have turned out badly for her. She goes along on a car trip with Hanna, an Israeli woman (Hanna Laslo), who is attempting to collect a debt owed her husband, who has been injured in a terrorist attack.
The trip takes them into the so-called free zone where shady dealings occur. There Hanna confronts Leila (Hiam Abbass) to demand her husband pay the money, and Leila in turn insists that they do not have the money.
In the process the film depicts the checkpoint difficulties where Israel is concerned and establishes a tone of uncertainty and tension. The problem is that, despite strong acting, following the trail lacks compelling interest and the story is too dull to develop emotional involvement.
The most effective moments occur with the voice over of a song titled “Had Gadia,” a folk style metaphorical lament for “the hellish circle” of what is happening in the Middle East. A New Yorker Films release.
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