MOVIE

Eran Kolirin, The Band’s Visit. This modest, wise, and funny movie plops down a band of Egyptian policeman-musicians in an Israeli nowhere land. Kolirin sidelines explicit political themes in favor of drawing out characters who are, to be sure, shaped by their cultures but not defined by them. Filled with subtle surprises, from the musical passion simmering quietly beneath its characters’ uniforms to the deeper truths that fuel that passion (OGIC).