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Dancing Arabs

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Israel, Germany, France · 2014
1h 44m
Director Eran Riklis
Starring Tawfeek Barhom, Ali Suliman, Yaël Abecassis, Laëtitia Eïdo
Genre Drama

Eyad is caught between cultures when he becomes the first and only Arab boy accepted into a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Jerusalem. Although he is initially isolated and lonely, a forbidden romance slowly blossoms between Eyad and a Jewish girl. But, in order to be accepted, Eyad must make a life-changing compromise of identity.

Stream Dancing Arabs

What are people saying?

What are critics saying?

75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by

Riklis, working from an adaptation of a popular novel by the Arab-Israeli writer Sayed Kashua, is wryly perceptive of the ways each side exoticizes and demonizes the other.

80

The New York Times by Andy Webster

Impressive acting (especially from Mr. Suliman and Yael Abecassis as Yonatan’s mother) enhances this thoughtful drama, directed with a sure hand by Mr. Riklis, a film veteran.

83

The Playlist by Chris Willman

Films about this particular divide don’t get any kinder or gentler, but there’s a knowing sweetness to Dancing Arabs that doesn’t come off as particularly naïve or divorced from reality, at least taking some of the false hopes of the period into account.

63

Slant Magazine by Clayton Dillard

It lacks a formal rigor to match its thematic heft, preferring a digestible naturalism that serves its plot points in plain, uncomplicated sight.

75

RogerEbert.com by Godfrey Cheshire

A Borrowed Identity commendably avoids polemics in order to provide a textured portrait of a young man going through a set of personal transitions against the background of ongoing cultural flux that reflects a larger, collective identity crisis. Its evocation of the historical period feels carefully honed and resonant.

60

Variety by Jay Weissberg

Riklis’ strongest film in several years, this is another well-intentioned plea for coexistence, though apart from one scene that lays bare, with welcome righteousness, the disturbing orientalism infiltrating even Israeli intellectual circles, the whole thing is rather too scrubbed and clean.

70

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

At its best, A Borrowed Identity concerns itself with the malleability of self, with who we are and how society and culture can force identity choices on us.

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