The Band’s Visit

Sometimes, We take life for granted. The house, the water, the sun, the air, the food, the …

A music band comprised of Egyptian police people visits Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center. No one comes to pick them up at the airport. They are lost in the country. They are not able to understand what people speak and vice versa.

They end up in a place called Bet Hatikva instead of Petah Tikva. They meet a lady Dina, a restaurant owner and spend their night, with the band split in Dina’s house and one of the worker’s house.

There is so much to tell about the movie but very little words. It was one of the few good movies that makes you laugh and feel for the character. It is a small film but wise in its understated depiction of humanity’s common bonds, slow-paced but held together with a sensitive charm. In a moving sequence, band member Simon plays a lovely but unfinished composition for the clarinet for Itzik who tells him that he should end the piece, not with a traditional showy display but with what is there for him at the moment, “not sad, not happy, a small room, a lamp, a bed, a child sleeping, and tons of loneliness.”

How much they speak about life, children, loneliness and how we look at life.There is so much happening around us that we fail to notice. We are busy chasing the unknown carrot without even looking around us.

I am reminded of a story. A friend of a king visits the king. The king is busy so he asks the friend to help himself to a self-guided tour of the palace. But, he gives a cup of oil. This friend returns after going to every nook and corner of the house. When the king asks how the palace looks, this friend answers that he didn’t get chance to see the palace because he had all attention fixed on the cup of oil. The king asked if he asked him not to spill the oil. King asked the friend to tour once again only this time, the friend did not have to look after the oil.

I don’t remember the context of the story but, above is the crux. Oil is your goal/ambition/transient aim and the palace is your life.

This movie urges me to go to a unknown place. There is so much meaning in being a human being. It makes so much sense to look at someone’s eyes and empathize.

Take my word. We are gifted to feel, to think, to understand. It is so much fun to talk, to see and to hear. Just look around you and feel the life. It feels great to look out at the sky and feel the cold air. It is so good to belong here. It is so good to feel the life, the place, the conscience.

This movie didn’t ask these questions but it, sure, pushed me into a state, that my mind started asking questions. I wish you watch it some day.

And, this one life is such a gift that you might have wanted to spend it usefully… purposefully… thoughtfully. Will you do what you are doing if this were your last day? Are your eyes fixed at the oil ?

Comment.