tnr121209

FILM REVIEW: THE CAPULETS OF HAIFA

The Montague-Capulet pattern has been used a lot lately, fitting easily the Middle East situation. The girl is Israeli, the boy Arab, or vice versa. Now, in "The Other Son," it is altered. Two young men, seemingly Israeli and Arab, are discovered to have been accidentally switched at birth in a hospital, a Jewish one. Once again, racial difference roars.

French director Lorraine Levy, aided by Nathalie Saugeon and Noam Fitoussi, does not use her variation on this basic split as a trick for funny or saccharine effects. Levy and crew see their idea as a possibility, an especially acute way of examining current troubles. They see that it is not a matter of mere labels -- that those labels have caused a difference between the boys since birth, and probably before that. The discovery of the mistake will be almost like the tearing of flesh.

Joseph, who thinks he is the son of an Israeli senior army officer, a youth now 18 and himself up for military service, is told after his physical exam that he has a different blood type from his parents: He is of Arab stock. All three are of course thunderstruck, and the Jewish mother immediately tells his father that she has never been unfaithful. One of the picture's ingratiating touches is the quickness with which he believes her. Both know the answer must lie elsewhere.

They meet with the head of the Israeli hospital in Haifa who has found the mistake. Soon after Joseph was born during the Gulf War, there was a SCUD missile attack on the hospital. Two babies in a single incubator were taken to a safer place. During the disturbance, the babies were mislabeled. This explanation is accepted by all four parents, but it only exacerbates the trouble. When Joseph hears it, he says: "You mean I belong to those people who threw us off our land?" Yacine, the boy brought up in an Arab home who is really Jewish, is the "son" of an engineer who has been forced by Jews to practice as an auto mechanic in his hometown.

There are lovely scenes between the two boys and their fathers. The only slightly Frank Capra moment occurs when Yacine makes his way back to the Arab home and is invited to stay for dinner. Things are stiff at first, then Yacine, who wants to be a singer some day, starts in on a song they all know and they eventually all join in. A bit syrupy.

All the other readjustment scenes occur casually in meetings of the young men and their brothers and their girlfriends. One of their meetings is on an Israeli beach; Joseph is peddling ice cream, as only an Arab should do there. Yacine offers to help. Later it happens again spontaneously. Simple fraternity replaces imposed order.

Of course it is easy to imagine other, darker, results after the opening accident, but Levy's film, pitched firmly as if it were the only possibility, makes it seem so.

(This article originally appeared at www.tnr.com, the website of The New Republic.)

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