Lemon Tree

Director Eran Riklis makes his home in Tel Aviv, but his films tend to occupy the borders between nations. Co-written with Suha Arraf, Lemon Tree serves as a companion to their previous collaboration, The Syrian Bride. Hiam Abbass from The Visitor returns as Salma Zidane, a widow who tends the family lemon grove along the Green Line dividing Palestine from the West Bank (Arraf and Abbass are both of Palestinian-Israeli descent). When the Israeli defense minister, Israel Navon (Doron Tavory), and his wife, Mira (Rona Lipaz-Michael), move in next door, his security detail advices him to destroy it since terrorists could use the trees for cover. After Navon conveys his intentions, Salma springs into action, hiring a recently-divorced lawyer, Ziad Daud (Ali Suliman, who co-starred with Abbass in Paradise Now), to take her fight to the courts.Initially, Navon has all the power and Salma has none, but Mira, who also suffers from empty nest syndrome, feels for the lonely woman next door--and Ziad finds her compelling in ways that Salma's Palestinian neighbors finds inappropriate (he's younger and rumors link him to a politician's daughter). Then the media gets wind of the skirmish and paints it as a classic David versus Goliath story, but the Israeli Supreme Court will have the final say. Like the The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree presents a parable about the Middle East, but the characters feel more like real people than cardboard cut-outs, and Abbass commands the screen with her calm, determined presence.Kathleen C. Fennessy/Amazon.com