Wild Bill Ketelhut provides the "blog" to this anti-blog
Wild At Heart
Ziad Doueiri gained notice as a camera assistant for Quentin Tarantino on the films 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Jackie Brown' but now he is writing and directing his own films, including the political thriller "The Attack" about an successful, Arab surgeon living in Tel Aviv who deals with the aftermath of his wife's death in a suicide bombing. Ali Suliman plays Dr Jaafari whom we start off with as he becomes the first Muslim doctor to receive a very prestigious medical award. His wife fails to come home that night and the next morning he is given the news that his wife was killed in a terrorist attack and that she is being looked at as being the one who triggered the explosion.
Dr Jaafari starts off in denial and we end up following him as he tries to come to grips with what happened and tries to find out what is the truth about his wife and why she did what she did. The story is told rather simply and gains its power by that simplicity. The film does not try to preach or take sides. Both the Palestinians and the Israelis are shown as ordinary people. Both sides, from the Israeli police to the Palestinian friends of his wife, have questions and answers for Dr Jaafari who seems rather disconnected from the reasons both sides have about the conflict. His disconnect to fully understanding the conflict makes him the perfect cipher and the perfect person to bring the film home to us.
The film is wonderfully acted and beautifully shot and despite numerous questions being answered, there are still some that remain and probably will as long as people fail to get along. I give the film a A-.
The films opens July 12th at the Uptown Palladium in Birmingham.