Free Zone

Amos Gitai's Free Zone opens with a nine-minute fixed shot of Natalie Portman weeping in a car in Israel, said Jessica Winter in The Village Voice. It's a bravura performance; crybabies everywhere will appreciate Portman's 'œpossibly unsurpassed mastery of the lachrymal arts.' But because no character in a Gitai film does anything nonmetaphorical, we know that Portman's Rebecca is 'œcrying for the entire region.' Just to drive home the point, Portman is sitting near the Wailing Wall. That moment is a lot more resonant than what follows, said Stephen Holden in The New York Times. Free Zone is a 'œdeliberately murky film about the crossing of borders and the blurring of identities.' The American Rebecca has just broken up with her Spanish-Israeli fiancé. When the Israeli Hanna (Hana Laszlo) decides to drive to Jordan to collect a debt, she hitches a ride. They head to the Free Zone, an area bordered by Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia with no customs or taxes. There, they meet the evasive Palestinian Leila, played by Hiam Abbass, said Derek Elley in Variety. Hanna and Leila's interactions provide 'œthe one real relationship in the movie.' While Portman acquits herself modestly, only Laszlo and Abbass transform the 'œweighty subtexts into real cinema.'

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