Beautiful, gentle, warm and wacky 'Band'

A low-level Egyptian policeman who also plays the violin in a ragtag band that is visiting Israel is going out into the little desert town in which the band is stranded for the night.

"Just watch out," his stern band leader tells him.

"Of what?" he asks.

"I don't know. Just keep your eyes open."

The comment says all that is needed to be said about the way the world works today. It is unusual, one thinks, to find Egyptians and Israelis who don't want to kill each other at first sight.

It's just a small scene but little things mean a lot in "The Band's Visit." In fact, they mean everything. This is a wonderfully human movie that sneaks up on you in sly and entertaining ways.

The film begins with the announcement: "Once - not long ago - a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel. Not many remember this. It wasn't that important."

The film that houses this little parable, though, is an important one because of its essential smallness. It is beautiful, gentle, warm and more than a little wacky in the way it shows us that lonely, isolated people can be quite funny as long as we are watching them from a distance and not one of them - at least not admitting to be one of them. It features three fine performances that are supported by at least a half dozen equally on-target performances.

Oh, we know you'll resist seeing it, as, indeed, I did, because the very premise sounds so preachy, but that's not the case here. This is not a political movie. In fact, the conflicting cultures are barely mentioned - just implied.

The eight-piece band is making the trip from Alexandria to play for the opening of an Arab Cultural Center in Israel. When they are not met at the airport, they take off on their own but get on the wrong bus and wind up in a rundown town where there are no more buses that day. They're lost. They don't have much money because the band's budget has been cut and, to make things worse, they don't speak the language.

Director Eran Kolirin, making a stunning feature debut here, uses visual clues to develop the characters in both the town and the band.

The highlight performance is given by Ronit Elkabetz as Dina, an earthy, tough-but-longing local woman who runs a tawdry restaurant and "adopts" the band. She's been around but has found herself stuck in this dump. She accepts it, but she's ready for action if it should come along. And along come eight woebegone guys from Egypt.

She arranges a place to stay for the guys for the night and puts on a tight red dress to show the stodgy band leader the town. There isn't much to show. The nightspot is a rundown roller-skating rink where '80s American pop songs are played.

Fine performance No. 2 is delivered by Sasson Gabai as the lonely, stoic bandleader who has the kind of face that suggests he's had a sad past. The strained conversation between him and "this woman" tells us plenty about their desperate stances in life.

The knockout member of the band is Saleh Bakri, who is out to pick up every woman in sight. There is what may become a classic scene in which he instructs the local nerd boy in how to make moves on the local girls. Gentle. Telling. Touching. Very funny.

There are other characters who merely pass through yet seem to be so well-etched. The band member who never completed his concerto, but still hopes. The local guy who waits every night by a pay phone, hoping his girlfriend will call.

As a troubling sign of the status of the world, this film has been banned in Egypt. Submitted as Israel's entry in the Best Foreign Film race, it was disqualified because the Academy ruled that more than 50 percent of it was in English. It is, in fact, in English, Hebrew and Arabic, with subtitles for all. Don't let the subtitles scare you off. The movie is primarily visual.

In this case, the edge of the desert is a place to meet people. Once you meet them, you'll remember them - and hope for them.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347 mal.vincent@pilotonline.com