User Reviews

I just saw this at the London Film Festival. Oh, what a treat.

Taking on the fashionable use of related threads and retelling the same narrative from a different angle, this film delivers a bullet tough view of street life and crime around Jaffa.

The audience is sucked into the maelstrom so quickly, that we forget the media view of the great enmity and realise that there are, of course, many smaller ones. While much eventually revolves around Israeli governance, this is not a blame game but a Shakespearean tragedy.

Unlike City of God, the casual viewer is not always given heavy clues about a characters background - and which side of the racial / religious divide they are on. And subtle differences can end up being of major (often fatal) importance. Beware.

This is not a film destined for multiplexes. Its a man's world where women are a distraction. There is no victory for political correctness. But more to the point, we are not given any particular reason to believe that Things Will Get Better.

There is the sensitive kid thrust into a situation that requires more maturity and smarts than normal for his age, there is the couple whose love incurs disapproval because it crosses ethnic lines, there is the authority figure who protects you today but may turn against you tomorrow... the problem is, this movie has two of each of those. The cast of characters is huge and hard to keep track of, the plot is artificially discontinuous, and in short if you want to get the movie straight, you'd better be ready to see it twice. Which you may want to, because the acting is convincing and although the characters are used from time to time to make a clear and didactic sociopolitical point, they win considerable sympathy from the viewer-- without, for the most part, being oversentimentalized.

Ajami tells the tale of Israeli Jews and Arabs, albeit splintered. The audience is treated to a violent opening followed by dialogue and interaction. As they see the individual characters unwind, the Arab store owner, the Israeli cop, things begin to get more complicated.

The primary power of Ajami is in its mode of storytelling which correlates to the content itself. There are several chapters, each telling a different story. What is most intriguing is how these stories fit. A character will appear two chapters later only for his intentions to be revealed then. A certain act of violence, a consequence of violence, etc. are not contextualized but only taken in the moment. The viewer may be tempted to judge or hold preconceived notions about the characters until the filmmakers, often with great effect, reveal the true intentions of these individuals.

This can be applied to the whole of the Israel-Palestine situation. Each violence has its lasting impact on individuals and groups alike. In Ajami a murder is not only between the victim and the perpetrator. Likewise reading in the news about a killing can only tell a fraction of the truth. The filmmakers wisely adopted a very documentary like feel to this film, similar to The Class and Gomorra. Characters names are only mentioned realistically. There is a sense of confusion as to who is whom for some of the sequences. At times it is frustrating because a Western audience may be more tempted to discuss the actual identity of a character than understand the point of the movie as a whole. Another issue is that this documentary, video approach to film-making can sometimes feel problematic or trite. By the time the third and fourth chapters are reached, there are several emotional climaxes. But these are immediately followed by more revealing. It works in most cases, prompting me to give Ajami a very high mark.

It is a film worth seeing for anyone interested or disinterested in the region. A highly potent character study that proves, perhaps unintentionally, the power of a filmmaker to show or to not show intentions.

I noticed that one reviewer said that this film was for all tastes. Well, I cannot see that at all. The film is pretty depressing and violent--and I'd never recommend it to anyone who is depressed or who doesn't want to see a film like this. It's gritty, tough and not something for all tastes. However, it was recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (i.e, the Oscar folks) and was nominated for Best Foreign Language movie.

This film is very unusual because it is seen from several different viewpoints. I never would have imagined an Israeli film where the main characters are divided up into chapters and each one stars such different people--such as Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians as well as Jews. This is the best thing about the film--it humanizes everyone and shows motivation of everyone. None of them are evil, exactly---just people for good or for bad.

As far as the story goes, here's where it gets depressing. Different folks NEED money and need it fast--such as the young man who must gather an astronomical sum to keep a violent gang from wiping out his family and another who needs to pay for his mother's life-saving surgery. What these folks do to try to get the money as well as the sad story of the dead Jewish young man all make for a compelling but incredibly depressing story. Death abounds and life is cheap in this film.

Overall, it IS well made and the acting is quite nice. But I just found myself feeling awful by the time is was finished. Maybe you'll get more out of it than me...I dunno.

Astonishing that this is a debut feature from two young directors. The film, named for the Jaffa neighborhood where most of it takes place, chronicles the story of several neighborhood residents who tread through life amid rampant crime, strict Arab family structures and rules, clan law, revenge killings, harsh police and racism, and the growing Jewish presence in the neighborhood. It could have easily fallen onto the abundant clichés which generally characterize films that delve on this subject matter - but instead, there are no fingers pointed, no blame set and no far-fetched allegories. The focal point is always on individual human beings, and the injustices and tragedies that constrict their paths.

It's stories from the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, Israel. Nasri is a young Arab. His neighbor Yihyah is mistakenly shot in a drive-by. They were coming after his brother Omar after his uncle shot a young thug from the Abul-Zen Bedouin clan demanding protection money. Omar seeks help from Abu Elias who arranges a traditional trial. Omar and his friend Shaata struggle to come up with the massive payment. Malek is an illegal from the Palestinian territory of Nablus. He starts working at Abu Elias' restaurant. Others in the community join in the various stories.

It starts with the compelling story of Omar. The tribal court is engaging. The disjointed nature of the storytelling disrupts the flow. There is an exciting thrill to the low nature of the neighborhood. As each character's story is introduced, I keep wanting to get back to Omar's story. The story may be compelling but its disjointed nature makes it difficult to enjoy.

Ajami is the first full length feature film directed by two young Israelis Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani.

They have produced an extraordinary film which features five separate stories set in Ajami, a poor Arab neighborhood situated in the city of Tel-Aviv/Yafo. The many characters are played mostly by non professionals, i.e. are not working actors, and the result gives a documentary feel to the film. Amazingly the level of acting is very high and ensures that the film is completely believable and absorbing from beginning to end. Perhaps the only drawback is the limited time available to develop each main character. The viewer wants to know more about them and their lives but time is limited.

The film shows a part of Israeli society rarely shown in Israeli films (Arab Moslem and Arab Christian families living in Ajami) and the makers are to be commended for their achievement in showing a rather hidden side of our society.

I attended a 'full house' screening at the Tricycle Cinema in London, having invited a party of 6 people of different ages and backgrounds. The consensus was unanimous, an excellently executed film, showing the rawness and tensions simmering within Israel's Arab & Jewish populations.

In his pre-screening presentation the director correctly focused on one of the core reasons why Jews & Arabs continue to be suspicious of the other...in many ways it is down to the Jews not speaking Arabic and only a few of the Arabs speaking Hebrew. It is amazing that the Israeli government has yet to address this issue.

This is definitely a film which needs to be seen twice in order to comprehend all the various nuances. Two scenes stood out for me...the Judgement scene at the Beduin elder...and Dando's family grieving.

Well done!

Ajami is a first film by the team of Scandar Copti, an Israeli Arab (with a Christian family name), and Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew. It gained recognition at Cannes and in Israel; and is nominated for the Best Foreign Oscar. Using locally recruited non-actors, shooting in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, which has become a mostly Arab ghetto outpost of Tel Aviv, 'Ajami' is full of improvisation and hand-held camera work that give it an intense feeling of immediacy -- and seethes with action disturbing enough to leave you feeling bruised. Israeli cinema is remarkable for a tiny country; it's a pity more Arabs outside Israel can't see this film. Despite the myriad hostilities and misunderstandings 'Ajami' depicts -- between Palestinians from the territories and Israeli Arabs; Arab Christians and Arab Muslims; Israelis and Arabs; rich and poor; old and young -- there is hope in the fact that an Arab and a Jew could team up for such passionate film-making.

'Ajami' interweaves multiple story-lines with a documentary feel using a large cast and, to make matters more complicated but also underline interconnections, it's divided into chapters that are not quite in chronological order so some events are seen again, from a different angle the second time. Most of the scenes are in Arabic but some are in Hebrew or a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic. All the location inter-titles and the end credits are rigorously both Hebrew and Arabic -- a practice not uncommon in Israeli cinema, but especially resonant here.

The action begins with a drive-by shooting -- of the wrong person. A young boy, Nasri (Fouad Habash), who narrates the film, his soft voice giving it a kind of clarity and delicacy, is present when his cousin is shot while working on a car in the street. The hit man meant to get Nasri's brother Omar (Shahir Kabaha), as revenge for Nasri's uncle's killing of an extortionist. Omar is now clearly in mortal danger.

The neighborhood leader and restaurant owner Abu Elias (Youssef Sahwani) arranges a deal-brokering among village elders at a bedouin camp where men bid back and forth as to how much protection or payoff money is required for Omar to stay alive. Omar can't possibly raise the sum finally arrived upon, but he's indentured at Abu Elias' restaurant; and there, Omar turns out to be in love with his boss' daughter Hadir (Ranin Karim), a serious no-no, since her family is Christian and Omar's is Muslim. Next there arrives a bright-eyed and innocent teenager, Malek (Ibrahim Frege) who sneaks in from the occupied territories and is an illegal worker in the restaurant, an Arab exploited by an Arab, the harsh Abu Elias. Malek also has an impossible financial burden, needing to raise many thousands to pay for a bone marrow transplant for his seriously ill mother.

Eventually both Omar and Malek are drawn into trying to deal dope to raise money, against the strong objections of Nasri, and totally against the wishes of Abu Elias, who wishes to appear to function within the law, even if he doesn't.

Meanwhile there are the Israeli and near-Israeli parts of the story. Dishonest Israeli cop Dando (Eran Naim) appears both as a bastard, when persecuting the boys who're clumsily attempting to sell cocaine, and a softy, when it comes to the disappearance of his younger brother from the army, perhaps captured by Palestinians, an event that devastates his family (these are the all-Hebrew scenes). The Arab co-director Copti himself plays Binj, a Palestinian who speaks fluent Hebrew and has a non-Arabic speaking Jewish girlfriend. He is pressured by his Arab friends for this, and his life turns tragic when he holds drugs for the others after his brother has stabbed a Jewish neighbor in an argument over noisy animals, and the cops manhandle him, with Dando on hand in his bad-cop role. This sequence about Binj seems to dramatize the futility of cross-over dreams in this harsh world. (The problems faced by Arabs living in a Hebrew-speaking Israeli environment has also been dealt with in the hit Israeli sitcom "Arab Work.")

It doesn't necessarily seem as though Dando is more dangerous, in a sense, for the young Palestinians than the brutish Abu Elias, who threatens to break Omar's bones if he continues his courtship of Hadir. Partly it is the elders who appear as the villains, more threatening here than Israeli checkpoint guards.

One has to grapple with all these plot elements to follow 'Ajami.' The intersections get complicated, and the film is a bit under-edited at two full hours, but there is a wealth of cultural material that gets across along with the insistent problems and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness for young Arabs. There is great warmth among friends and family members of all stripes. But even fun moments seem framed in scariness, like a birthday celebration for Malek which he's sent to by threatening him that the "government" (الحكومة, i.e. police) is after him. Even the birthday present they give Malek, an electrified tennis racket, has an edge of menace. 'Ajami' doesn't stop for a breath or a moment of happiness: it succeeds in convincing you that isn't possible.

Further proof of that impossibility came early this month (February 2010) and life imitated art when Scandar Copti's brother Tony, a supporting actor in the film, was arrested after Israeli police accused some Ajami teenagers of hiding drugs who said they were only burying a dog. This led to a brawl in which Tony Copti and another brother were arrested and hauled off to the police station for questioning, according to a 'Haaretz' article.

The movie has five loosely tied chapters (i.e. plots) and it makes use of a recurring theme of bringing those five chapters together in the climax. Think Babel or Crash, for example. The reason I didn't like the movie was my reliance on English sub-titles and being unable to to keep pace with the ties between the chapters. I kept losing track of some of the characters too. You need an attentive brain for that. I believe a better job could have been done of synchronizing up the chapters. The cinematography is almost documentary like is some places and doesn't feel polished.

This won't be a popular review. That doesn't matter, a few people will see the point.

There are many fine Israeli movies, but this isn't one of them. Yes, the movie has lots of qualities. As far as the movie experience goes, I liked it a lot. But at the end of a movie that portrays conflict, it always pays to step back and ask what ideology may subtly have been embedded.

So when the movie ends, what remains? Every single time a law is broken in this film, it is broken by an Arab. In this movie, Jews never break the law. It's easy not to notice because the stories are so dense and immersive. Many people will walk out with thoughts such as "yeah, it's a complex situation". Subtly imprinted underneath that thought will be an other thought: that Arabs (who break every law all the time) basically make life hard for the Jews (who never break the law).

Don't tell me about the mixed ethnicity of the directors, that's irrelevant.

If you want something a bit deeper, something that looks at why things are the way they are, go read the Eisner-award-winning "Palestine" graphic novel by Joe Sacco, or "Jerusalem" by Guy Delisle.

Like many recent Israeli films, 'Ajami' succeeds to illustrate the enormous ethnic and cultural complexity of the country, with an authentic, non-trained cast to boot. I'd say it's a must-see for anybody interested in the Middle East, because it presents a view into Israeli society that is all too often obliterated by politics.

Focusing on the low-income, ethnically mixed neighborhood of the same name, 'Ajami' describes a number of interwoven relationships, touching petty crime, revenge killings, labor extortion and police corruption. The only weak point is that on top of these everyday occurrences, the film uses the disappearance of an Israeli soldier as a central plot device; while this may be a real risk, it's not an everyday occurrence as the other incidents described and therefore feels a bit forced.

Other than that, 'Ajami' has a very special, raw, authentic feel to it, especially in its first hour, when it spreads out in so many different directions that it becomes difficult to follow, but never obscure. Only in the end, when the directors try to reconnect the threads of their stories, it takes a bit of a dive.

If you allow yourself to be captivated by 'Ajami''s atmosphere and don't focus to much on the plot, you're in for a real treat.

Ajami is a masterpiece, a film of the rare quality you look for when hitting the cinema. The achievements of this film are far greater than any shortcomings or glitches people may find.

As someone who's been to many of the exact locations (or similar) the film portrays, I was thrilled to see how well the film managed to connect these geographical dots together and create a very specific visual language.

Not often you see so many diverse landscapes and locations in one film without the diversity being annoying and decorative. In a Ajami's case, the wide selection of locations enhances the strong linkage: a small village near Nablus, the city of Tel-Aviv, a Bedouin encampment can be all linked by a single event.

By going in digging backwards into the events, it seems like only more questions arise, more events happen to be linked and the reality happens to be far different to what we expect.

This is the biggest quality of the film: It manages to open the eyes of those who thought their eyes were open already.

Story has been told by separate chapters, and not sequentially in time.

Each chapter gives just about the right weight for character and story-line development, no less and no more.

The film does let dichotomy regarding the cultural, religious, economic and ethnic conflicts be presented, beginning to end, as viewers may all have participated.

What distinguish the film from the average arrangement is 1). a back thrust of the powerful ending, and 2). the crisp closing of each chapter and 3). the motif gradually changing its tone from chapter to chapter. This gives the exciting movie going experiences, much more than, if this film has been shot in, a linear, one way, manner, instead, to offer.

After seeing the movie, viewers can fully apprehend why living in this territory is complicated enough and dichotomy is no longer dichotomy for an outsider to judge those who are in this entanglement of the millennium; sadly, it remains hard for generations to expect resolutions in an easy way.

Old Jaffa, bordered by the Mediterranean on the east and surrounded on the other three sides by Tel Aviv, is still predominantly Arab and Ajami is one of its neighborhoods. This film, which tells its several stories episodically and without drawing any explicit lessons, conveys the hazards attending life in a place where Israeli Arabs and Palestinian Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, Bedouin and other criminal gangs, rub up against one another under the sometimes watchful eye of Israeli police. Without summarizing the story to the point of revealing the plot, it is about violence and the threat of violence, about familial ties and codes, about vengeance and deals to appease the avengers. It is very well acted, and the subtitles make clear what is being said either in Arabic or Hebrew and occasionally both at once. The film makers have not had much experience. That makes it all the more remarkable that they have succeeded so admirably in telling overlapping stories from different vantage points and, sometimes, out of sequence without confusing the viewer. It is harsh but powerful film and well worth the two hours required to watch it.

An interwoven story about how geography can determine people's fate. This storytelling and editing is somewhat refreshing. However, in the end the whole film feels neither bad nor good. And ultimately it's doomed to be forgettable as a result of failing to make audience care for the wooden characters.

An interesting film, no doubt heavily influenced by "Traffic" and "Babel" "Ajani" takes 5 or 6 stories and quite brilliantly interweaves them together. The film mostly focuses on the Arab/Israeli conflict, and it's effect on the regular townspeople. It would help if you knew a bit of history (I didn't) to have a better political connection to the stories, but that's OK, the stories make up for it with it's human element. It's a bit confusing to follow for the first bit while you're trying to figure out what the filmmakers are doing, but once you get into it, you get hooked. Contains a twist ending that's both shocking and in an instant, puts more depth into the story. A must see if you're into these types of films. Great work here.

(2009) Ajami (In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles) CRIME DRAMA

Edited, co-produced, written and directed by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani when the direction is reminiscent to the other movie "City of God" from 2002 which not everything is what it appears, somewhat escalated when a young man is shot upon him fixing a car he had just bought. It is during then it is somewhat narrated by a young boy named Malek (Ibrahim Frege) before it is told from his older brother, Omar (Shahir Kabaha) point of view. The movie is raw gritty and violent that is surely not sugar coated that involves several different characters.

From all the movies we submitted to the Academy Awards during the years, Ajami stands victorious. A great story about small hopes and dreams in an average-Israeli-reality in which no one is sacred. It is story telling at it's best, and i'm not saying this strictly because i'm from Israel. it's simply a great movie. a conflict is as good as the key actors within and in this case, it shows the variety of personalities that the Israel-Palestine conflict has. I'm curious to know how the movie is accepted around the world. There are a lot of small gestures that are hidden in the language itself and can't be translated. Plus, you have to live here in order to fully understand the meaning and complexity's of the actions portrayed in the movie. I hope and pray that Ajami will be this years winner just because it deserves it more than anything else.

In trying to keep this review right to the point, I must say that there are few movies that keep one thinking and wondering. Just who *are* these actors in this film? Is the story line about life in such an area similar (or, as tragic and seemingly hopeless)? How in the world did the film get written so tightly?

The acting was impeccable. For the life of me, I cannot understand one word of the languages used in the film, so I had to rely on tone, emotion, body language and projection. I felt that everyone in front of the camera has lived through pain and heartache in their own lives, the way they could embrace the emotions that they carried so well, both the young and older performers. Ajami is an emotional roller coaster for certain; from the very first scene, it's bound to startle. It's a deeply charged film that speaks so much about life and death, living amongst all the suffering, all with so much prayer and religious belief intertwined (no, this film does not pound the viewer with religion) ... which helps confound the viewer by asking where the heart of the problem is in that region, in the first place?

A great piece of filmmaking compels the viewer to dig deeper and find back stories and trivia. Ajami is such a film because I put my trust in the protagonists to believe their characters. They did not lose my belief from some unbelievable twist in plot or outcome.

If you can handle the emotionally tragic story, please seek out Ajami. If you're not sure, strengthen your inner soul some day to watch this film. Absolutely top notch, even with the difficult plot jumping that sometimes happens. If you feel puzzled, the film will not let you down ~ you'll learn all you need in time to drop your jaw clear to the couch by the time the credits roll.

Ajami is Amazing.