Worth: $19.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Amer Heidelberg, Ashraf Farad, Anat Hadid
Intro:
a brilliantly pithy script, which boasts a kind of elegant clarity... superb plot twists... strong acting... a phenomenal ending... and a number of unforgettable vignettes.
The strange opening scene here is hilarious, but Mediterranean Fever rapidly evolves into a profoundly serious drama. One of its two protagonists is Waleed (Amer Heidelberg), a 40-year-old aspiring author – living in Haifa – who is trying to write a novel but suffers from deep depression and is seeing a therapist. The other is Jalal (Ashraf Farad), Waleed’s new neighbour, who supposedly works in construction but has some evidently heavy associates. Jalal is relatively extroverted – yet can be guarded.
In the most literal sense – and this film is nothing if not multi-layered – the story is about the (initially slow-burning) friendship which evolves between these two men, though both have families and pressing broader concerns and problems. Their demeanours and moods change – sometimes ‘swapping’ – and very little is quite what it seems, least of all the apparent simplicity of much of the story. Even the reasons behind their cultivation of each other are ambiguous.
Mediterranean Fever is downbeat and extremely bleak, and it’s also one of those rare films that’s so good you strain credulity and sound like you’re exaggerating merely by listing its qualities. They include a brilliantly pithy script, which boasts a kind of elegant clarity (and garnered the award for best screenplay in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes)… superb plot twists… strong acting… a phenomenal ending… and a number of unforgettable vignettes. Plus, it’s intermittently really funny – whenever it’s supposed to be.
Unmissable!
