Lemon Tree (2008) User Reviews

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet, but the fruit de-da de-da?

[Chris_Docker · 6/10 · 6 July 2008]

At its heart, Lemon Tree has the simplistic Blue Peter logic of many a Middle-East Conflict Film. There might be bureaucracies, politics, religion and culture in the way, but if ordinary people could just talk to each . . .

The 'ordinary people' are also usually those disenfranchised in a cross-cultural way. In Bridge Over the Wadi, they were children. In Lemon Tree, it is women who pick up the, 'if only we could live together' banner.

Salma is a Palestinian widow. She has lived on the green line border between Israel and the West Bank for decades. She tends a lemon grove. Handed down to her through generations. She barely scrapes an existence from it, but it is her whole world.

On the opposite side, the Israeli Defense Minister moves into a big new house facing her lemon grove. The Israeli security forces declare the proximity of Salma's trees a security threat. They issue orders to uproot them. Salma engages Ziad Daud, a Palestinian lawyer. They go to the Israeli Supreme Court to try to save the trees.

Meanwhile, Mira Navon, the Defense Minister's wife, is trapped in her luxurious new home but pretty miserable. She feels increasingly sympathetic to Salma's plight. Hubby makes public expressions of concern, but says he cannot go against the recommendations of security forces.

As an interim measure, Salma is prevented from entering the grove. The trees start to shrivel. This disparity is highlighted when the Navons throw a lavish party, with 'authentic Egyptian food.' But realise that that the caterer hasn't brought lemons. It seems a minor matter to pick up a few lemons from the adjoining grove . . .

With films like this, it is always tempting to look for bias. Although it was part-funded by the Israeli Film Council that doesn't make it pro-Israeli in this case. It's based on a true stories but (as always) there will be claims that it is too 'pro-Palestinian' or 'pro-Israeli' in the telling. Director Eran Riklis was born in Jerusalem, raised in USA, Canada and Brasil, graduated from film school in England, and now lives in Tel Aviv. He claims his film is, "about solitude as it is reflected in the lives of two women."

One of the film's main contributions is to explain the impossible deadlock and how both sides are pretty powerless, given their institutions, to change much. The Israeli Supreme Court verdict, when it comes, is gut-wrenching. But Palestinian officialdom seems more worried about propriety than the widow's attempts to protect her property. It is all superficially civilised. Lemon Tree initially disappoints me for not being more hard-hitting on political themes. But given how the politics of both sides can be excruciatingly tedious, Riklis has made a wise choice in turning real life political drama into a simple human interest story. In that, it Lemon Tree achieves something of a microcosm for the disputes. But does the film make creative and constructive inroads, or is it simply a pleasant and aesthetic way of not coming to terms?

Most of the comments I hear about how remarkably even-handed it is have come from liberal Israeli commentators. And there is much truth in their view. But a gulf still exists. There are no end of projects (and movies) focussing on peace initiatives between the two sides. Palestinians are often unhappy that such projects ignore the inequalities between them and Israeli Jews. Or act as a conscience-salve for the Israelis. "Existence first, co-existence later", has became a common Palestinian slogan. Lemons are a major crop in the area. They need a lot of water. Just like Salma, banished from her own grove, the Palestinians do not control their own water supply. Just like Salma, in times of crisis, they may lack the means of survival. Palestinians seeing Lemon Tree may agree about its even-handedness. Yet, like Salma, leave a little less sanguine about the value of emotional empathy between the two women. Or so sympathetic to the understanding Mira. Yet in the festering political deadlock, films of such beauty are still better than nothing.

The conflict in human light

[stensson · 8/10 · 6 July 2008]

This is about the 45-year-old Palestinian widow. She supports herself by these lemon trees. Then, the Israeli minister of defense becomes her neighbor, including security problems. The greatest of these problems are the widow's trees.

But there's also a quite silent love story here, between the woman and her much younger Palestinian lawyer. It's not very physical, but the passion is evident in their eyes.

Movies like this makes more for your interest in this very tragic conflict, than any action performance. To be recommended, if you want to know more about people. And politics.

Must the Fruit of the Lemon Tree be Impossible to Eat?

[raiderhayseed · 8/10 · 5 October 2008]

Lemon Tree is something of an enigma

Beautiful to behold. The actresses bring to mind those stylish and glamorous creatures that used to inhabit the French New Wave films such as those of Claude Chabrol. The men are civilised, sophisticated, capable of turning heads and touching minds. Appealing characters with flaws as well as virtues

The ideas being explored are universal – justice and mercy for widows, the rights of citizens to be able to pursue their lives in peace and security.

Both sides of the argument are given an articulate and arresting airing.

It is impossible not to sympathise with Hiam Abbass' portrayal of Salma, the poor but self reliant widow who merely wishes to continue working the small family orchard her father left to her.

And yet the rather soulless security officials are proved to be correct in their assessment of the site as a security risk. Bullets are fired from the orchard at high ranking government officials and ministers who attend as guests at the house warming party.

The culmination of the film, in which the erection of the security wall between the orchard and the Defence Minister's house alleviates the problem seems to be an admission of defeat. All the ingenuity, urbane civility and intelligence of Israeli culture has been found wanting.

I assume Rona Lipaz-Michael, who has portrayed with admirable understatement not only an awareness of the widow's plight but also the emptiness of her once vibrant but now seemingly loveless marriage to Israel Navon, the Defence Minister, is walking out on him in the last few scenes of the film. It brings to mind the culmination of Lee Tamahori's film, "Mulholland Falls" in which Melanie Griffith pronounces her judgment on not just the actions but also the moral values of her well meaning but flawed police detective husband.

That got me thinking about something I read in an Automobile Association World Travel Guide to Israel back in 1998. Perhaps not such a prestigious reference for matters of importance, but it stated that the Jewish National Fund owns 92% of Israel and (more surprisingly) that almost all of Israel had been purchased from the original owners before the setting up of the state of Israel in 1948.

Obviously the 1967 War changed the borders, but I wonder why rich and not so rich Jews around the world could not launch another fund to seek to buy, lease or set up exploratory avenues that would allow people of good will to investigate a means of sharing the land in a more equitable manner than seems to be the case depicted in this film.

The persistent image of that security wall throughout the film brings to mind a passage in Isaiah 54:2-3 ... "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.

But that comes from post apocalyptic passages of Isaiah. It concerns that obsession of the biblical prophets, "post-Day of the Lord", Israel and this film deals with Israel here and now. Readers of Israel's prophetic tradition would probably have to concede that Malachi's apocalyptic prophecies seem to mark the transitional phase.

The direction and scripting are exemplary, the performances engrossing and compelling. And yet the sum total of all the considerable talents invested in this film seems to amount to something less than a satisfying experience.

Director and joint writer Eran Riklis has deftly sidestepped the resort to the heavy handed caricature of films such as Ra'anan Alexandrowicz' "James' Journey to Jerusalem" (Massa'ot James Be'eretz Hakodesh) and the dour bleakness of Ronit and Shlomi Elkaberz' reworking of the prophetic writing of Hosea in their film, "Ve'Lakhta Lehe Isha" (To Take a Wife)

Maybe it is like the Lemon Tree of the title. Pretty, sweetly scented flowers but bearing fruit too sour to eat.

Maybe that is the problem. The implications of what is being portrayed up on the screen are too bitter to contemplate for long. They are best left behind in the cinema. And the packaging of the product is so well contrived that the viewer can do that by uttering a few sanctimonious sentiments about the difficulty of the situation facing Israelis and Palestinians and leaving it all up there on the screen.

Watch "Promises" and "Checkpoint" instead

[tieman64 · 22 July 2012]

"We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn't stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren't surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too. There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. There is no middle path here – either the Gazans and their infrastructure are made to pay the price, or we reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip." - Gilad Sharon

"There are no innocents in Gaza. Mow them down." - Michael Ben-Ari

"Lemon Tree" is a well meaning but too on-the-nose film about life in the West Bank and Gaza. Directed by Eran Riklis, the film stars Hiam Babbas as Salma Zidane, a Palestinian widow who depends on her meagre lemon grove for survival. More than sustenance, though, the grove offers Salma sense of cultural continuity and purpose; she loves her land.

The grove, unfortunately, is swiftly targeted by an Israeli Defense Minister, who just happens to move next-door to Salma in a giant mansion. The minister orders the grove uprooted, but Salma fights back with grit, moxie and attorneys. Her actions are in vain. Her grove is razed, bulldozed and burnt.

Conventionally for such films, Israelis are portrayed both sympathetically and overly authoritarian and callous. Meanwhile, testosterone fuelled men on both sides are the causes of all problems, Palestinians too concerned with personal pride and wounded masculinities to bring about real change, Israelis too concerned with being existential victors to care about who or what they step on. Women – the soothing femininity of Palestinian and Israeli women, both of whom attempt to change the coarsened hearts of men - are then posited as the solution to all problems. If we all cared like women care, the film says, if we were all humane, everyone would be happy.

Reality is different, though. Never have as many Israelis cared about the Palestinian plight, and never has Israeli expansion proceeded so speedily and unchecked. Israel listens, but has no intention of lending more than an ear to Palestine. Thirty-two years ago, Israel signed a peace agreement with Egypt in which it pledged "to recognise the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people" and to establish an autonomous authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip within five years. Nothing has happened since. For years it was claimed that Yasser Arafat was the sole obstacle to peace with the Palestinians, but of course once he died – his death now presumed to have been due to Polonium poisoning administered by Israelis – once again nothing happened.

While the film does well to draw attention to Israel's Wall of Separation, to the ghettoising of Palestinians, to the countless Human Rights breeches, to the carving up of the West bank, to the slow but constant appropriation of Palestinian land, to the countless checkpoints and walls of apartheid, the film's central metaphor nevertheless feels silly and inadvertently comical. It's hard to take "Lemon Tree's" sermonizing seriously when everyone is drinking lemonade and the film is bathed in a lemony glow. And then there's Salma, who is far from a typical Palestinian. Fairly well off, with access to due process and judicial councils, her story prettifies far worse ongoing problems. See "Paradise Now", Justine Shapiro's "Promises" and Yoav Shamir's "Checkpoint" instead.

7/10 – Worth one viewing.

Falls short of its ambitions: POSSIBLE SPOILERS

[[e-mail] · 6/10 · 17 May 2011]

"Lemon Tree" rehearses a phenomenon all too familiar in the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- the seizure of Arab property by the Israeli government. It's usually olive trees and the path of the Israeli security fence. Here it's a 50-year-old lemon grove across the road from the new home of Israel's defense minister. It pits a widowed Palestinian woman against the Israeli security apparatus, which is determined to protect the minister against the possibility of a terrorist attack. The main thing that's wrong with this premise is that an incoming defense minister is not going to build his house on the border (and the wife of the Defense Minister is not likely to leave him because the lemon grove is destroyed and she has developed an emotional connection with the Arab woman). There are any number of possible scenarios which could have made the confrontation entirely plausible, equally dramatic and far more realistic. It would have been better (in my view) if there had been a legitimate dilemma between the property rights of the Palestinian woman and the security needs of the Israeli authorities. Although I sympathized with the Palestinian woman as was intended, the situation was entirely too contrived. The director could have made the same film based on one the all- too-many actual incidents which have occurred.

A powerful human drama with brilliant socio-political tones.

[dan_littauer · 9/10 · 26 September 2008]

This is a powerful fictional drama which I hope will move many viewers. The narrative is about people living in both sides of the ever increasingly fortified frontier between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. Principally a story about a Palestinian woman, Salma, fighting to save her lemon orchard from the paranoid reality of Israeli security politics.

This is above all a human drama, about the strength of conviction, and will. The two main characters are women who are imprisoned within the chauvinist world of Jewish Israeli society and Muslim Palestinian - both fight to find their voice, their space and their lives. It's about the barriers that both have to face, about the physical walls being put up between people and the mental & cultural walls... Almost all the characters of the film are imprisoned by the circumstances of their life and history in one way or another.

The movie certainly touched me; it principally communicated to me a feeling that the two women yearn to talk to each other, as well as to their lovers, their families, friends and societies at large. Yet they confront painful difficulties - leaving many things unsaid, which frustrate potential resolutions. To me, it can be seen as a larger metaphor in a cultural/political context.

The script is brilliant in my view, in the way it humanizes the context without appearing embarrassingly heavily politicized. The director, Eran Riklis, did a very good job; in his dreamy and clever use of ideas and symbols – almost a national emblem of Jewish Israel connection to the land – is here a Palestinian one, powerfully rooted just as much. About two back yards, a small old Palestinian house with an apparently frail lady – yet powerfully connected to the land. And a model home of an ambitious and ruthless Israeli defense minister that increasingly builds walls in his mind, with his family, and unfortunately between two people – Palestinian and Israeli Jewish. The powerful acting really made me identify with the characters.

Although the film is melancholic, it is replete with wonderful humor, and optimism - essentially how decisions, which can be hugely nationalistic and political, impact ordinary people. Yet even the "little people" can, and do, despite all odds, fight back and affect big decisions.

I give it 9 out of 10, simply because I think Riklis, could have been less linear in unraveling the plot – still this is a masterpiece!

Screaming at the TV

[tom-3160 · 7/10 · 2 July 2010]

For this very good title my mother was watching it with me after recording it off film4. she was screaming and outraged at the treatment of the lady with the lemon tree grove and how the head of defence across the border was treating her with such a bad attitude, portrayed as if he was opposing the cut down, when really he was supporting the deforestation of her family grove of lemons.

The film follows her struggle even showing how the defence minister has uprooted other groves elsewhere in the from of olive trees in the safety of people and the worry of terrorism, which is what seals her trees fate.

The state and the government of Israel against a Palestinean agriculturist, this film is truly moving and makes you side for the 'little people'. Not many films get me so on side like this but this is good and shows how in those countries the people and especially women are treated bad and are not taken into account.

A must see, for womens rights.

If you cut down a lemon grove, what is left?

[Red-125 · 10/10 · 26 July 2009]

Etz Limon (2008) directed by Eran Riklis, was shown in the United States with the title "Lemon Tree." (Don't confuse the film with a popular novel that has the same title.) The plot of the story is simple enough. The Israeli defense minister moves into a home located right next to a lemon grove owned by a Palestinian woman. Israeli security agents decide that the grove presents a hazard to the minister and his wife, and declare that the lemon trees must be destroyed. The Palestinian woman fights the destruction of her livelihood and her legacy.

Although the basic plot of "Lemon Tree" is simple, the movie is complex. There are fascinating interactions between the woman--Salma Zidane, played by the incomparable Hiam Abbass--and her lawyer and her children. The defense minister has a edgy relationship with his wife. (His wife is basically a fair and caring woman, and isn't supportive of the grove's destruction, but she also likes being married to a powerful, charismatic public figure.) The defense minister is obviously very close to a beautiful young aide, and the movie suggests that they're having an affair.

Although the film is clearly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, all of the Palestinians aren't portrayed as perfect individuals. One local Palestinian leader doesn't suggest any course of action for Salma, but warns her not to accept compensation from the Israelis. Refusal to accept compensation probably makes sense as a political strategy. However, without compensation, what options are open to a widow whose sole livelihood is taken from her?

To me, the saddest part of the movie was the failure of Salma and the minister's wife Mira (Rona Lipaz-Michael) to ever meet face to face. On several occasions in the film they almost meet, but the meeting never actually takes place. Symbolically, that failure to communicate on a personal level represents the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma. They are figuratively and literally unable to speak to each other, and therefore they can never move beyond stereotypes and hostility.

We saw this film at the excellent Rochester Jewish Film Festival. However, it would work well on the small screen. It's an extraordinary film, and definitely worth seeking out.

Female Castration

[rotildao · 9/10 · 5 September 2008]

With and outstanding theme that follows the rivalry between ancient cultures, like in The Band's Visit, only this time with lesser romanticism, Lemon Tree is filled with charm and firm posture by both female leading characters and brings politics and female castration into a great clash of emotions with tied-up fists.

The struggle is against urban development that even in the least expected areas of the world tends to eliminate memories of the individual and their experiences. The swifting of values comes pompously, arrogantly, and city like, taking away the taste of fresh lemons in place of comfortable homes and their obvious (as consequence) invasions of power and money, status and politics.

The abrupt invasions are made here by Israel's National Security man and his beautiful and lonely wife. With subtlety the film depicts the ups and downs of a politician's wife contrasting her castrations with the lemon trees owner. Subploting this idea comes the lemon tree's lawyer who seems to be the only benefited in the end with all his self cultural sexual-harassments added by the exposures of the facts by the media, granting him an elevated change of status.

Don't get fooled by the sweet and lovable soundtrack in the initial scenes, and although this film is lighter than most female dramas still respects reality instead of appealing towards tear-jerking melodramatic confrontations, and that is what makes this a true cinematic experience.

A very important film and one the best of 2008 so far.

Vote 9/10.

Smart and engaging drama which moves around its subject matter, not to mention wider political isues, with ease

[johnnyboyz · 7/10 · 1 January 2018]

"Lemon Tree" is not a particularly political film, but its roots lie in a deeply divisive and inherently political issue. Its overall attitude to the seemingly perpetual conflict between Jews and Arabs on the Sinai Peninsula seems to be to poke fun at it, even point out the absurd nature of it and the ridiculous conclusions people involved in it reach - such as the rather far-fetched belief that a small orchard might be used as the means for an armed assault on a premises housing someone important. Its second of two agendas is to remark that, ultimately, the conflict is one being fought between two sets of human-beings, all of whom are flesh and blood and as flawed in their thinking and attitudes as the rest of us.

It does not seem coincidental that the film's opening shot is that of a large knife dividing into two halves a lemon, for here is a film about a problem to do with binaries; segments and redistribution. Cutting the lemon is Hiam Abbass' middle-aged Arabian woman Salma Zidane, somebody who is living in the West Bank and runs an orchard housing the eponymous lemon trees which has been in her family for decades. She grew up tending the trees with her father, but with him deceased and her children off and away studying in America, she relies on the elderly Abu Hussam (Tarik Copti) to help her harvest and maintain the plot. On the other side of the orchard is, quite literally, the nation of Israel.

From nowhere, the very real situation that has engulfed her geographical area since the forging of a Jewish state in Western Asia lands directly on her doorstep: none other than the Israeli Defence Minister, played by Doron Tavory, moves into the villa on the plot immediately next door to her land. In a flash, lookout towers go up; fences are erected and guards armed to the teeth patrol the perimeter. Director Eran Riklis utilises here the harsh juxtaposition of the harmless, aging fruit pickers of Salma and Abu going about their business with the extreme militarism of the new neighbours for what I assume to be comedic effect - the statement is subtle, but effective, in what is a difficult situation to get across a political point without appearing reactionary.

To Abu and Salma's horror, the Minister's paranoia about being exposed to some sort of attack by Israel's enemies extends so far that he places an executive order to have the orchard torn down... His reckoning being that the collection of trees might act as fantastic cover for a group of soldiers or militants to surprise the Israeli during some kind of siege of the villa. Not content to take this as it stands, Salma decides to drag the decision through the judicial system - stopping at nothing to keep her lemon trees.

From here, one is able to reach a glut of conclusions about the film and enjoy it in a variety of different ways. The most basic of readings is to enjoy it as little more than a procedural legal thriller, where somebody of some power has done something which victimises somebody else and that said victim must fight their way through the courts for an unlikely victory. This in itself brings about an array of problems, issues no less pertaining to legal costs; mind numbing levels of mostly unresponsive bureaucracy on the judiciaries' end and the sheer emotional toil. "Lemon Tree" reminded me, in this respect, of an old Senegalese film you will not have seen entitled "Certificate of Indigence", where a woman largely on her own wades through the system to seemingly obtain a basic right to even be acknowledged.

Alternatively, the film is a love story: the lawyer Salma hires, Ziad (Ali Suliman), to work with her throughout the case eventually comes to fall in love with her - the fact he is already married complicates matters further. "Lemon Tree" might also be read into as a feminist piece - a mousy, and otherwise defenceless, woman seeks a victory over a patriarchal figure. Lastly, it might be 'enjoyed' as either pro-Palestinian - where the Israelis are bullies and the Arabs victims - or inherently Zionist, where the last bastion of the homeland of the Jewish people's minister for defending that land is merely taking the rightful precaution for his survival. Does he not have a point about the orchard in the first place?

Director Eran Riklis, who is Israeli born, manages to find a film-making 'place' which depicts Israelis as both shallow reactionaries and bullies, but also, in the form of the Minister's wife, sympathisers of the poor Arab woman next door who is about to lose her beloved trees. Scenes involving the two often humanise them, meaning the Jews' role in the film is not to fulfil the role of the stock Zionist oppressor/villain. An Arab, for sure, is the victim in the film, but we are somehow able to sympathise with Salma in her plight without being anti-Semites - her lawyer, the aforementioned Ziad is presented as a deviant in one respect as he would quite easily have gone behind his existing wife's back had Salma not rejected his advances. However one views "Lemon Tree", one ought to be able to enjoy it.

Heart-Rending

[MikeyB1793 · 9/10 · 7 December 2008]

Heart-rending. A nuanced film about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

I don't pretend to know a lot about this conflict, but I felt this film had much to say. The characters and the inner conflicts they feel are very well brought out.

There is a lot of strength and feeling in this movie. Neither side is presented as being perfect and having all the 'right' solutions.

The film is slow moving and very thoughtful and I appreciate that when I compare it to the histrionics in most films today. There is also a complexity in the characters and story. The scenes shown of Israel and the Palestinian camps, the check-points, the wall.. are most informative.

two great female characters

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 14 May 2016]

Salma Zidane is a widow scrapping by a living from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank that was inherited from her father. The Israeli Defense Minister Navon and his wife move in next door. The Secret Service wants to cut down the trees but Salma resists. She gets young lawyer Ziad Daud to take the case. Mrs. Navon is sympathetic but the military bureaucracy marches on. It becomes a media cause as the case rises to the Supreme Court.

This is an anti-wall movie. The two female leads are very compelling. There are missing scenes that would have propelled this to the next level. The movie is building up to a meeting between the ladies but the security guard stops Mrs. Navon. That would have been a very compelling scene but the movie choose to go another way. There is also a bombing but the movie chooses not to show it. I would rather not have a bombing at all. These two women are great characters and this is an almost great movie.

A pointed but way-too-harmless motion picture

[NumeroOne · 4/10 · 26 April 2009]

"The Lemon Tree" is a picture that deals with a "hot" subject in low-key, human terms, but fails to really connect on a human level. The leads all deliver solid performances but they don't have much to work with. Characters are drawn in subtle sketches, but the sketches fail to hint at anything other than sketches and there is less subtext than the dialogue's minimalism would suggest. The film attempts to draw parallels between the alienated Israeli minister's wife and the alienated Palestinian widow, but both characters are too passive to create any real drama and neither of them really change. The film even goes as far as to avoid showing on screen some of the characters' pivotal moments, which suggests that the writer-director didn't know his characters well enough to show us how they would behave. A film which appears to be about women on the sidelines of a conflict proves itself to be more about women who are on the sidelines of life itself, but it seems to believe it is making a statement about the nature of national conflicts. Politics kept this viewer interested during the film's short running time, but, politics aside, the film is a minor exercise in the display of pretty actresses and Judean landscapes. Pretty actresses and Judean landscapes nearly make this film worth the price of admission but in a year when Israel also produced "Waltz With Bashir," this one should barely register.

Well, I wish I could be a better neighbor to her,a normal neighbor...

[elsinefilo · 8 July 2009]

Lemon Tree is set on both lines of the green line border between Israeli and the West Bank.When the newly-appointed defense minister Israel Navon(Doron Tavory)moves in a house which is on the border,the Israeli secret service sees the neighboring lemon grove as a threat to the defense minister and her wife so it is militarily decreed that all the lemon trees be uprooted arguing that the grove could be used as a hiding point to realize a terroristic attack.On the other hand,the owner of the grove,Salma(Hiam Abbass)inherited the grove from his late father and she thinks no money could compensate the loss.So,she sues the minister with the help of the lawyer Ziad Daud (Ali Suliman). When she loses the case in the court she takes it to the Supreme Court and sets a precedent.

The movie is based on a real life incident.In 2006 while acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the cutting down of Palestinian olive trees a "criminal act" that needed to be treated with "full force", ironically the security forces began cutting down the olive trees near the house of Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, the depicted minister in the movie. Eran Riklis does not take sides as an Israeli filmmaker. His movie superbly juxtaposes the hypocrisy of Israeli authorities and the corruptness of Palestinian authorities.For instance,when Salma tries to bring her case,which is newly beginning to get media attention, to the presence of the president, her efforts are met by the answer:"But the President is always busy." Along with talebearers who speak ill off her closeness with her lawyer,things get tougher for Salma. Hiam Abbass does a great job in portraying a Palestinian widow who is torn apart between her 10-year loneliness,her helplessness and the temporary affection of somebody she barely knows.I've watched her in Paradise Now (2005)and The Visitor (2008) before and I think she is really doing better. Rona Lipaz-Michael as the wife of the defense minister who forges a sweet humanistic bond with the widow is no slouch at doing the job either. Those two lead the movie but you just find yourself feeling a natural sympathy to almost every character somehow. In a world of too much blood and too much politics movies like ETZ LIMON serves a great purpose!

Terrific parable scrupulously avoids the polemic but is just satisfactory as entertainment

[herbqedi · 6/10 · 23 December 2012]

First of all, Hiam Abbass (The Visitor, Amreeka) once more demonstrates how she can portray reactions to heartbreaking with dignity and resilience. She is a truly amazing actress. Based on an amalgam of true incidents, the Lemon Tree serves from beginning to end as a parable for what we all hope and what most of u (but not all) believe to be the majority of well-meaning human beings on both sides. Personally, they mean no harm; they wish that the violence would go away and that they could live their lives as "good neighbors" in the words of Defense Minister's wife Mira Navon (hauntingly portrayed by Rona Lipaz-Michal). However, the courage to stand up to one's own peoples to cross the borders is rare. Even when summoned, it is squashed quickly by well- meaning people afraid of the consequences. The movie remains true to itself and its characters throughout. There are few callous stereotypes to be found here. Yet, in the words of The Temptation in Ball of Confusion (NOT part of this wonderful soundtrack), "the band plays on." Relentlessly.

The story is an almost perfect parable for the heart of the entire situation. As a movie, however, I found 30 minutes of it too repetitive, just underscoring again and again the mindless yet entrenched obstacles. As an even-handed political dissertation, such defenses should earn any PhD candidate her or his "A". As entertainment, however, it hurts the pacing enough that one watching on DVD needs to splash cold water on one's face to make it all the way to the end. Please do so, however, because the ending is magnificent.

Worth seeing, just a bit slow in patches.

Like Eran's Syrian Bride, The People behind the Conflict

[shmulik-cohen · 9/10 · 25 October 2009]

Very Realistic or close to Reality with Emphasis on People involved. Salma played by Hiam Abbass, a widow who lives on her dead Fathers Lemon Grove. An Israeli Defence Minister comes to live opposite Grove. Based on real story with Minister Shaul Mofaz. This causes a security problem. Showing "Fence" which is mostly a Wall. The Ministers Wife identifies with Salma. This is very much like Israel 2008. Similar to "Syrian Bride" Riklis set's up the Realistic Story and how it effects on People caught in to the situation. Hiam is Marvelous and other actors in the cast too. 9 out of 10 Sam's Rating. An enjoyable DocuDrama.

A Sensitive Inside View of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict

[gradyharp · 10/10 · 7 September 2009]

LEMON TREE (ETZ LIMON) is a film of quiet power, the kind of film that does not find it necessary to expose the audience to violence and conflagrations to make its point, but instead relies on the power of human reactions to carry the very heartfelt punch. Written by Suha Arraf and Eran Riklis (who also directs) the story is a deceptively simple one. The setting is the West Bank. On the Palestinian side of the border lives the widow Salma Zidane (the enormously gifted actress Hiam Abbass remembered best by American audiences for her luminous portrayal of the mother in THE VISITOR) who continues to tend her family's lemon grove alone, barely making enough money to support herself. Abruptly, on the Israeli side of the border, the government builds a house for the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Navon (Doron Tavory) and his beautiful and wisely sensitive wife Mira Navon (Rona Lipaz-Michael). Strange neighbors, these, more under the influence of the Israeli Secret Police who are assigned to guard the Minister than sensitive to the basic kindness of human decency. The Secret Service decides the lemon grove must be cut down to guard against possible terrorist access to the Minister, a declaration that sets off Salma's fear of losing her land and income. Salma seeks the help of young lawyer Zaid Daud (Ali Suliman) who bonds with her emotionally and legally and together they fight all the way to the Supreme Court to save the lemon trees. Fences are built, soldiers abuse the privacy of Salma, and the increased publicity in the media divides not only the peoples on both sides of the border but also the Navons: Mira empathizes with Salma, champions her rights, and though the two women never meet, the bond between them transcends the ages long hostilities between the Arabs and the Israelis. The result of the interpersonal conflict between the Navons and Salma is buried by the expected governmental insensitivity and the film ends with some sad surprises.

The cast of this film, including the minor roles that draw focus for only moments but in a memorable manner, is uniformly exceptional. Hiam Abbass is rapidly becoming one of the most impressive actresses on the screen today: she says more with her eyes and her body language than pages of dialogue could attempt. The surprises come from the other members of the quartet of actors that lead this story, so impressive are their portrayals that the entire question of the West Bank conflict seems understandable...and remedial! Based on a true story, this is an excellent film on many levels. In Hebrew, Arabic, English and French with subtitles.

Grady Harp

Grey Lemon

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 14 July 2008]

Yes I know a lemon isn't grey, but yellow (or green, if it ain't ripe yet), but I'm talking about the grey area this movie does try to shine a light upon, with more than a light human touch coming with it. You get both sides of a dilemma, that concerns the aforementioned (see English title) lemon tree(s).

The director and the stars where at the screening I watched. There were many questions, one concerned the message of the movie. Interestingly enough the director himself is a Jew. But he still sees the craziness of the Gaza/border to other countries. And he also had an "All-Star" cast, that shows that there must not be any hate between the races. And the movie itself raises a few questions, about a few hot topics. It's a movie worth watching, not only for those that are afflicted by the themes of the movie, but also for everyone else!

Best Israeli Film I ever watched

[hcaraso · 8/10 · 13 May 2008]

This movie is available here since April 23rd, people are queuing to see it and nevertheless, nobody shows up with a comment. LA VISITE DE LA FANFARE, also an Israeli film deserving to be called "a shake-hands tentative with a neighbor country" was nice, but the characters did not look Egyptian to me (and I've seen quite a lot of Egyptians in my life).LEMON TREE is perhaps a true story, although I don't believe it. It is however one of the most valuable attempts to show the unsolvable problem existing between two nations who have been fighting for more than 60 years to find a solution of cohabitation. The situation: an Israeli prominent figure (Minister of Defense, not less) has built himself a house next to a field of lemon trees owned by a Palestinian widow. The Army (I hate the word Tsahal, doesn't sound congenial to me) has no other solution than to erase the whole field, otherwise a Kamikaze fighter may find a base for throwing dangerous warfare. The case is brought to the Supreme Court of Israel, which comes to a solution supposed to satisfy everybody and constitute a large step towards a better understanding. Go and see this movie, and tell me if the "verdict"

is not another rendition of the famous King Solomon judgement. You won't regret it, because the movie is excellent. I'll tell you no more. Harry Carasso, Paris, France

Nothing to write home about

[stefano1488 · 5/10 · 13 December 2010]

I watched this film a few days ago on ARTE, a French-German television. I was glad I had that opportunity, given the enthusiastic reviews I had read on the press. I was greatly disappointed. The film is really nothing to write home about. The plot is so one-sided, and the characters are so grossly divided into good ones and bad ones, that I'm very surprised reviews could be so positive. The point is not that it's pro-Palestinian: I, for one, have over time become a staunch critic of Israel and its policies, especially those of its present government. My point is that I expect films to be somewhat different from fairy tales. Of course, films can't be a history essay; but I get the disquieting impression that this film, with its mixture of an innocent victim, a cynical politician and his sensitive wife, is a cunning exercise in overt exploitation of the public's goodwill.

I won't let them touch my trees.

[lastliberal · 8/10 · 21 December 2009]

Hiam Abbass (The Visitor) is outstanding as Salma, a Palestinian widow with a lemon grove that ekes out a meager living. Unfortunately, the Israeli Defence Minister moves in next door and wants the lemon grove gone for security reasons.

Just like governments everywhere, there is no concern for the effect of rulings on individuals. The Defence Minister (Doron Tavory) is too busy chasing skirts to care. His wife (Rona Lipaz-Michael) cares, but has to put up with his philandering and his dismissal of her concerns. But Salma won't give up without a fight.

She certainly gets no help from the local Palestinian politicians, who don't like rocking the boat.

She goes to a local court and is dismissed, so she decides to go to the Israeli Supreme Court. Mira (Lipaz-Michael) gets more involved as the case drags on. The relationship with her lawyer (Ali Suliman) also gets more involved.

The film shows the impossibility of Palestinian - Israeli relations ever getting better.

A very good small film

[jackasstrange · 8/10 · 30 April 2014]

Lemon Tree is a very good small film. I am not familiar with Israeli & Palestinian culture further than what is told everyday on the news and all. Is a surprisingly good film. It uses various filmmaking techniques to make the story as thematic as possible. The predominant green and light-green colors in the art direction's palette scheme, for example - remind us the color of the lemon. The story itself can be seen as an allegory to the conflicts between Palestinians and Israeli. They both wants different things from a same tree, and they fight until no tomorrow to 'make their wishes come true'. Even a perhaps "small thing' can turn into a national problem. Also, the character development is just fine, and so is the acting. It goes overly dramatic a little bit, but nothing than can diminishes the qualities of the film.

The concrete truth about colonization and Israel policies

[nycterr · 10/10 · 13 May 2008]

Etz Limon is a very good movie which tell the story of a Palestinian widow (Salma Zidane) in the West Bank, living in her father's house for decades - she is around 45 years old, her dad was also in this house, therefore her family was there for more than 100 years. Her son and daughters are either somewhere else in Palestine, or even in the USA studying. She takes care of the Lemon Tree field with an old man (a friend of her dad).

All of the sudden: noise and dust. Someone is moving into a big fancy new house build right next to her field ... on the Israeli occupied land side. The Defense minister of Israel is moving in. And of course, following the advices of Security, plans are made to made the "area" safer. The Lemon Tree have to go. They could offer protection and hideouts for terrorists. The decade old field of beautiful trees must be torn down.

The movie then follows Salma's legal struggle against the almighty Israeli state, helped by a young local lawyer (Ziad Daud). An ethereal tensed relationship starts between Salma and the lawyer, which is not well received by the local men (this side of the story is barely approached). At the same time, an heretic and distant relationship appears between Salma (the Palestinian woman) and Mira Navon (the Israeli wife of the minister).

From local court to the supreme court, Salma fights for the right of Palestinian to enjoy their land, the land where their parents have built houses and lived for decades.

The movie is sometime over dramatic. Israeli are majorly painted as the evil doers in the area. And in the end, the Palestinian lose all but their dignity.

This is a striking case, inspired by a real story. It shows you, meters by meters, Colons and Settlers can gain land, gain power and put down local people, as it happened in History in many part of the world.

A good movie.

bitter lemon

[eduandre · 8/10 · 18 February 2009]

Those lemons are really bitter to eat but wonderfully painted in this Israeli production.

The sympathy of the director were obviously with Palestinian side, but he was not one-sided at portraying the condition of women in most Islamic countries and that even some Palestinians in the end can make a profit of the oppression.

The Minister of Defense character is a little bit naive in my opinion but this serves the scriptwriter and director goals.

The main conclusion of this movie is that anybody in this sad conflict loses something...in the end, the minister at least lost his wonderful home view to a ugly gray wall.

Deck is stacked against Israelis in this pro-Palestinian polemic

[Turfseer · 4/10 · 2 May 2009]

The Lemon Tree (Etz Limon) attempts to reduce the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a simplistic tale of David vs. Goliath (in this case, David being a disenfranchised Palestinian widow to the Goliath of a newly installed Israeli defense minister). The plot is fairly simple: Defense Minister Israel Navone has just moved in next door to Salma Zidane's lemon grove, which has been in her family for years; Navone's secret service detail deems the grove to be a security threat and so it must be cut down. Zidane objects, hires a Palestinian lawyer, who manages to get the case heard in the Israeli Supreme Court.

It's hard to believe that an Israeli Defense Minister would move into a home on the border of the West Bank and right next to a home owned by a Palestinian. And wouldn't his security detail have initially nixed the entire idea of moving into a home which was right next to a lemon grove where terrorists could easily hide and launch an attack? Unfortunately, logic is dispensed with here in the service of making political points.

Once again, as she did in indie film 'The Visitor', Hiam Abbass plays a Muslim widow of quiet dignity who also happens to be a saint. Along with a kindly housekeeper who has been working in the family lemon grove for years, the two characters bear the mantle of victimhood throughout the film. There is a slight attempt to humanize Abbass's character by showing her disappointment at a failed romance with her attorney, Ziad Daud. The source of her disappointment is an affair that Daud has been having with the daughter of a well-placed Palestinian official in Ramallah (not seen on-screen). While the affair should disqualify Daud for sainthood, in reality it doesn't!—since he agrees to forgo all fees for representing Zidane and is quite articulate in arguing her case in front of the Israeli Supreme Court, he is also promoted to the pantheon of Palestinian sainthood.

'The Lemon Tree' makes a very good case for Palestinian oppression at the hands of the Israelis. In addition to the confiscation and ordered destruction of the lemon grove, the Palestinians are seen undergoing a slew of other indignities including disrupting curfews, warrant-less searches and downright theft (the defense minister's wife allows a local Palestinian caterer to take lemons from the now fenced-off lemon grove without paying the widow). The deck is completely stacked against the Israelis as their justifications in the name of state security are depicted as being an exaggeration and practically baseless (while gunfire is heard outside the Defense Minister's home, heaven forbid that there should be an actual Palestinian terrorist shown sneaking through the lemon grove or anywhere else for that matter in this film).

The film is much more successful in depicting the upwardly mobile defense minister Navone convincingly played by Doron Tavory. Not only does he have to deal with his liberal wife who is appalled at the thought that the lemon grove has been confiscated and ordered destroyed but also must parry the blows from the liberal press who have made the fight over the lemon grove a national political issue. As the media vise tightens, Navone ratchets the double-talk up to the point where it appears he has deftly handled his opponents. But he wins no victories at the hands of the film's scenarists: at the end, he's a lonely and bitter man after his attractive wife leaves him not only due to his stance against the Palestinians but for conducting an affair with a pretty Israeli Army soldier.

Not only are there really no 'bad' Palestinians shown in this film, none of their intractable political positions are explored including their demand for the right of return of the descendants of those Palestinians who left Israel in 1948 along with the refusal to acknowledge the existence of the Jewish State itself. Had some of these positions been made explicit in this political allegory of a movie, the message of the movie would not have appeared so one-sided.

Had this been an American film, the Israeli Supreme Court would have sided with the Palestinians completely and ordered that the lemon grove be returned to Zidane. But this is no American feel-good film. Even the highly respected Israeli Supreme Court can't catch a break—their 'compromise' decision to prune the lemon grove only leads to its destruction. The widow Zidane forlornly walks through the decimated lemon grove as Israel must deal with its 'guilt'.

In some respects, 'The Lemon Grove' ably makes its case for the source of Palestinian bitterness. In their zeal to maintain security, heavy-handed actions by Israeli security forces have led to a feeling of humiliation on the part of Palestinians. But on other occasions it's the Palestinians who have provoked a harsh Israeli response and the Palestinians are the ones who are loathe to take any responsibility for such provocative acts.

When the deck is stacked so much to one side, the case for Palestianian rights loses credibility. The moral of this film should have been 'there are always two sides to a story'—but in this case, THE WAY IT IS EXPLORED HERE, the picture is skewed toward one side without proper balance. The result is a superficial examination and rendering of a complex political-historical conflict.