In Between

In Between is a an Arabic movie out of Israel. This is another movie that I have struggled to formulate my words, mostly due to the subject matter. I have come to appreciate and enjoy Israeli movies. The original release date was 2016, which I believe was in Israel, but the general US release date was November 2017. However, I'm sure it has been a pretty limited release, as Baltimore, and The Parkway Theatre didn't get it until January 2018. It has been about 2-3 years since Baltimore got any Israeli movies, which has been disappointing for me, as cinenophile whom appreciates these hidden gems.

I feel like this is one of the most promising one I have seen, out of Israel since A Borrowed Identity. In an age, where I relish in the different, In Between begins to break many of those barriers. One of the biggest hyped movies for the Oscars is Lady Bird, mostly due to the female director and strong female leads. Lady Bird, is however, what the basic white people enjoy: a semi autobiographical film that was kicked off in 2001 with Napoleon Dynamite. However, In Between, far better achieves the strong female leads and female director that Ladybird severely lacked. While I am not sure if initially In Between was Israel's submission for the Academy Awards, this one is certainly far better than many of those that made the 5 film cut that were nominated.

Maysaloun Hamoud, the director is a Hungarian-born Palestinian Israeli. The film, Bar Bahar/In Between won the NETPAC Award for World or International Asian Film Premiere at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. Many people are comparing or labeling it as a female version of The Breadwinner. In Between, focuses on three Arab women roommates in Tel Aviv, . The movie starts with two out of the three whom live together, prior to the third one moving in. The triptych relationship of the women develops as the movie focuses on the ingrained Islamic traditions for many women that live in Tel Aviv. One of the roommates works various restaurant jobs in addition to being a dj. The other original roommate is a lawyer whom likes to liberally blow off steam at the local watering hole bars and raves. These two women are far more liberal in their lifestyles and struggle to find their way in the set indigenous Islamic or Christian views of family and those in their social networks. The third roommate, Noor, when she moves in, is a more conservative Muslim, who needs to move into the apartment for school and studying purposes. She is engaged to be married, to another traditional conservative Muslim. Upon his realization on the lifestyles that Noor is exposed to through her roommates, her fiancee struggles to push for an earlier wedding date. This leads to an assault, which bonds the three women to rise to struggle to answer more questions of how they choose to live their lives and discuss this with family.

This movie does far more towards the rise of the women's movement, Time's Up, etc, than many other movies I have recently seen. That being said, this film however doesn't make strong political concepts or discussion points. For being so emotionally charged, Hamoud does very well in not getting to political or really dragging you to one point more so than the other in being the correct way of life. Rather, it's three women that bond together in a harsh assault. These women also struggle with the newer, more liberal identities, and old tradition, something many US films seem to have struggled to achieve recently. The struggles and many of the questions raised by the three women were all valid questions and took on a very humanistic approach to the film without getting too entangled or tripping up over ideas or dwelling on any ideas too long to hinder the development of the film. I feel many of what I have seem try to appeal to more one main audience, where this focuses more on the victims of assault and cultural change. There were tender scenes, as well as heart and gut wrenching scenes, and ones that simply made me smile. My only real complaint, if it is one, would be that there were some ideas I would have liked her to explore more. This being one of Hamoud's first films, I have a strong interest in seeing work that she will produce in the near future. I would highly recommend this movie.