The Olive Tree

The film opens with a telephone prank, reminding me as an American that it's to the Spanish we largely owe the art of pulling someone's leg and of amusing exaggeration. But the prank introduces an important theme, also Spanish, of who's getting the upper hand at whose expense. And the additional theme of how hard it is to retain a traditional sense of honor under 21st-century economic pressures. The plot is of the very simplest-- save the ancient olive tree!-- but the characters have side concerns of their own which, while not indispensable to plot, serve to humanize the movie and inspire empathy. The man beside me in the theater remarked two or three times, "Excellent acting." Nice music, too, and flashes of humor. My wife, who knows a little Spanish, let me know how colorless the English subtitles (here in Israel, anyway) were in comparison.