Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Movie Review: Turn left at the end of the world

An old Indian immigrant in Israel
A new Indian father migrated to Israel (Parmeet Sethi)


The young immigrant's Indian wife with 3 kids (Kruttika Desai)
A thoughtful teenage Indian girl (Liraz Charchi)


A Moroccan father
A dying Moroccan mother


A swashbuckling sultry free-spirited teenage Moroccan girl (Neta Garty)
Her fat sister - about to be married to a wimpy Moroccan man


A teenage Moroccan boy who gets a boner on seeing the Moroccan girl
A young teacher


A bewitching sultry widow in her sexual prime
A Moroccan youth protecting his territory

The movie is a story as seen from the eyes of an Indian teenage girl who keeps a diary of the various human interactions as observed by her. The movie revolves around an Indian family who migrates to Israel in hopes of a better life. On reaching the destination, they realise that the job and the lifestyle is not what was promised to them back in India. The family tries to adjust themselves with other immigrant families from Morocco and the mixing of the two different cultures produces a nice heady cocktail of a tale! The story is spiced up when a free spirited, chatty and sultry Moroccan teenage girl takes advise about love and life from a hot widow who is in her sexual prime. The widow is happy to genuinely advise the girl and sometimes also use her to fulfill ulterior motives.


Things take a turn for the worse when after getting tired of the low pay and the mundane job, the workers in the factory go on a strike. The Indian husband gets tired of his nagging wife and finds solace in the open arms of the the widow. The Indians invite the Brits for a game of Cricket, but full of aging men, the Indian team is lousy. They need help from the Moroccan youths. Meanwhile the Moroccan teen acts on an impulse and under the pretext of adding to the Indian girl's story, gives herself to her teacher. Her mother is diagnosed with cancer.



Can the two cultures, who are as different as oil and water, mix together?

Will the strike at the factory yield any results?

Can the Indian-Moroccan team beat the British at cricket?

Will the Indian man abandon his culture and his family for the Moroccan widow?

Will the Moroccan teen's raging hormones land her in trouble?

Can the Moroccan mother survive the cancer?

Can the Indian wife succeed in getting her husband back from the bewitching widow's clutches?

How will the Indian teen's tale end?


To find out, watch "Turn left at the end of the world"!




Directed by "Avi Nesher", the movie has been described by adjectives such as "keeps the chuckles flowing", "engaging and surprising", "A witty and sensual cinematic experience", "great acting and groundbreaking film making", "delightful and entertaining with intelligent directing and an excellent script", "The best Israeli movie of the year", "A cinematic gem by the stunningly talented Avi Neshar - funny and touching".

The movie lives up to all these plaudits.





The movie is a wonderfully woven tale of human emotions, drama, sex, love and cricket! I loved watching it for its non-preachy story telling and the brilliant portrayal of human interactions on the screen. It is "My big fat Greek wedding" meets "Monsoon wedding" meets "Bend it like beckham" - with an artsy feel added to it.

The director has managed to squeeze out above average acting from the cast. But the 2 actors on whose shoulder the movie rests do manage to deliver the goods! Neta Garty who plays Nicole (Moroccan teen girl) and Liraz Charchi who plays Sara (The Indian teen girl) are very good in their characters.

The thing I liked about the acting and direction is - consistency! The quality of acting is maintained throughout the movie and coupled with good screen play, you get drawn into the movie.

My rating - 7/10. Kick back and enjoy!




PS: The movie is in hebrew/french/english with subtitles available.

6 comments:

Smita said...

Hmmm never heard of this one..I mean with few Indian Actors in itwe expect them to harp aboyt their movies ;-)

Anyways the premises of the movie looks interesting with so many sub plots in here.

Lets see when do we get to see it...

Goes without saying great review :-)

Vee said...

I had first heard of this at PFC, but then never bothered to follow it.. Man, thanks for this and detailed analysis... It goes in the list.. Btw, that poster is in french, right?

eye-in-sty-in said...

Smita, the movie is an old movie - so chances are you'll never get to see it unless you watch it at home.

Are u insuniating that Indian actors harp about their movies? I have never heard Parmeet Sethi or Kruttika Desai harp about anything more than the lines given to them by the director.

Speaking of the story - Is that what is meant by subplots? I always thought this was called a PLOT!

err... thanks.

Hi Oxy, Yes, the poster is in French. I liked it better than the english/hebrew posters. Besides, this one was hard to find and thus unique. The english/hebrew posters are the ones with a blue backgrounds. Whats PFC?

Thanks for commenting.

Vee said...

PFC stands for Passion For Cinema. It's a website started by Anurag Kashyap (Director of Black Friday, No Smoking and Upcoming Dev.D). And it has stalwarts like Sudhir Mishra, Revathy, Abhay Deol, Onir writing there.

I too have written couple of reviews there. Here is the link: http://passionforcinema.com/

Ava said...

Sounds good. But to find it wont be that easy. Oxy has a knack for hunting down such movies, but never sends me a copy ;)

eye-in-sty-in said...

There is this thing that they call the internet - I hear you can find all sorts of wonderful things on it. This Oxy fellow you speak about must be aware of it. I also hear a broadband connection is better for it - I guess travelling on it must be faster because the roads there must be broader... :-))