Ajami is the district of the Israeli city of Jaffa where Jews, Muslims and Christians live. When in this neighborhood their uncle a key member of a clan shoot, feel brothers Nasri and Omar is no longer safe. Then there Malek, a Palestinian refugee, who works illegally in Israel to pay for the operation of his mother. Then you Binji, a Palestinian, who dreams of a happy life with his girlfriend who is a Christian. And finally there Dando, a Jewish policeman, who is desperately searching for his younger brother who has disappeared. It is these story lines, packed into a mosaic film, give color to the daily reality in Ajami. With of course the label fiction as shell.
Philistines
Ajami is directed by Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti which onmoetten each other on the Tel Aviv International Film Festival in 2002, where Shani was festival director. Despite their different backgrounds, Shani is an Israeli Jew, Copti a Palestinian resident of the Israeli state, she co-wrote the script. Ajami also takes place in the Israeli city of Jaffa, one of the oldest cities in the world and a major port city, which was once inhabited by the Philistines, a seafaring people that at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. BC. on the coastal strip in the south of Canaan, the area from Syria to Egypt, settled and intensive contacts maintained with Cyprus, Greece and Crete. From the archaeological data also shows that the culture of the Philistines in the twelfth and eleventh centuries strongly differs from that of other nations, but that from the tenth century there has been an increasing cultural assimilation with surrounding cultures. This is evident in areas such as nutrition or language and writing, but also in the field of religion; Philistines worshiped various gods, including Canaanite, or Syrian, and Egyptian gods. This lesson in history is now more relevant than ever; Christians, Jews, Palestinians, and Muslims, they live with and alongside each other in Ajami. The cultural assimilation with surrounding cultures has given way to an assimilation within cultures. However, the question is: these cultures can live together in peace?
Method
It is a timeless issue between Israel and Palestine. What now has to contribute to a movie that we, as Westerners, the situation better go or understand? Is that the purpose of the film, the better understand of doing all of the above? Or use Copti and Shani the situation in their district in order there, from their own experiences, to indicate a fiction injection? The viewer must make a decision, but something that can be pre-set is the method in which the film was shot and styled. The directors worked with non-actors and turned most scenes with two cameras simultaneously, at the same time. This choice allows a free hand in the assembly, which also can be seen in the final cut of the film; the skillfully interwoven images give a flashy appearance which, together intertwined with the stories together, to give it all a rate the viewer to the image keeps chained. A visual masterpiece.
Also, the choice to work with non-actors a gold. From the script were illuminated merely acts for them, dialogue arose spontaneously, not only gives the film a raw and realistic character, but also problematize the seriousness of the narrative, with stories inspired by true events. After an intensive, ten-month acting workshop with three hundred people, Copti and Shani have finally found their characters. Then these characters were not scripts, but they were literally in the situation, or scene, thrown. Then it was to them the task to evoke the right emotion. Call it method acting without dialogue. Improvisation. Or just want to tell a good faith in what you as a filmmaker. It is on all fronts that Ajami scores: a "fact-los-acterend-at-each-searched-bunched-non-actors', an impressive style, a great story and ditto rhythm. "Our actors come from the real streets and houses of this human environment and not from acting schools. Masterful widely, the timeless problem between Israel and Palestine equally in the middle permeable.
Conclusion
Packaged in the familiar but effective mosaic form, Mr. Shani and Copti give a lesson in effectiveness: telling several stories simultaneously rotated with two cameras, the presence of non-actors, all this makes of Ajami a loyalty research object, filled of distress, shock and vigor. That unfortunately.
