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Free Zone

2005, Movie, NR, 90 mins

Free Zone: Review

FREE ZONE
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Three very different women — one American, one Israeli, one Palestinian — find themselves treading the same path across the physical and psychic border separating Israel, Jordan and an economic free zone that lies somewhere in between. Having just broken up with her Spanish-born Israeli husband, Julio Breitberg (Aki Avni), 23-year-old American Rebecca (Natalie Portman) begs the driver whom Julio hired to ferry his visiting mother (Carmen Maura) around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to take her somewhere — anywhere, as long as it's far from her broken marriage. Julio actually hired Moshe (Uri Klauzner), but after Moshe was hurt in a terrorist attack, his wife, Hanna (Hana Laszlo), inherited the role of chauffeur. Hanna tells Rebecca she has important "family" business in Jordan; Rebecca insists on going along. With Mrs. Breitberg's luggage still in the trunk, Hanna and Rebecca cross into Jordan, arousing the suspicions of the wary and disrespectful customs officials who want to know why they're traveling into Jordan with so much baggage. Hanna and Rebecca eventually make their way to the "free zone" on the border of Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, where business is conducted without government oversight, taxes or customs agents. The real reason for Hanna's journey isn't family business but business business: After she and Moshe lost their flower farm to the first intifada, when their foreign workers were deported, and their limo business to the second, which scared away tourists, Hanna and Moshe began building and selling armor-reinforced cars. But Hanna's Palestinian contact — a mysterious man dubbed "the American" — owes her $300,000 and hasn't been seen in months. His wife, the dignified, cautious Leila (Hiam Abbass), persuades Hanna to take her on as a passenger as well, and the unlikely traveling companions are plunged into the Palestinian refugee experience. Everyone in the film is displaced, clinging to some notion of a self based on nationality, and while this is hardly director Amos Gitai's finest fiction film — that honor probably goes to KADOSH — he uses a bold technique to fill in his characters' histories: The past appears as memories superimposed, sometimes in triplicate, over the present image. Unfortunately, the characters feel more like symbols than people, despite strong performances, including what might be Portman's finest work to date. Her powerful opening scene — a long take in which Rebecca cries in close-up for an as-yet-unknown reason — could stand alone as a short film. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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