News: Inheritance (Héritage) Film Review

Actress Hiam Abbass makes successful transition to helmer’s role with deeply felt portrait of Palestinian community struggling with identity and modernity issues.

Making her directorial debut, Hiam Abbass locates the action of this ambitious family saga in several frontier zones: the frontiers between Israel and Lebanon, between religious and ethnic identities, between tradition and modernity, and between peace and war. Warplanes overfly the Palestinian village where her protagonists play out their various dramas at the beginning of the film and at its end, with the roar of engines or sudden explosions a regular reminder of the precocity of their lives.

Best known as Palestine’s leading movie actress, Abbass presents a convincing portrait of an embattled community struggling to find its place in the world. With its large cast of characters, the movie is demanding — it takes a good while to work out precisely who is related to whom and how — but rewarding. Inheritance is a good bet for specialist art-houses worldwide, in particular in urban centers that are home to communities of Middle Eastern origin.

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