When Pigs Have Wings

Director: Sylvain Estibal
Starring: Sasson Gabay, Baya Belal, Myriam Tekaïa
Rating:

The Israel-Palestine conflict may not seem like the most obvious backdrop for a heartwarming comedy, but writer/director Sylvain Estibal has managed just that with his scrappy, charming debut. Gazan fisherman Jafaar (Sasson Gabay) is the kind of well-meaning, hapless and slightly dim character you'd expect to encounter in an Emir Kusturica film. He spends his days picking out minnows from the heaps of rubbish that he's hauled out of the overfished waters around Gaza, then returns home to sleep beneath a turret manned by Israeli soldiers, one of whom pops downstairs sometimes to watch Brazilian soap operas with his wife.

Jafaar's situation takes a turn for the worse when he inexplicably lands a pot-bellied pig one day, the mere sight of which sends him scurrying to the cabin in terror. Desperate to rid himself of the beast, he attempts to lure it back into the sea, shoot it and sell it to a UN official, before hearing that the Israeli settlers living nearby might have use for a virile swine. So begins a comedy of desperate measures, leading towards a martyrdom effort every bit as farcical as the one depicted in Chris Morris' Four Lions. It's peppered with brilliantly funny moments, including numerous jabs at both sides of the political argument, and though Estibal occasionally oversteps the mark, he only really comes a cropper in the final minutes, when his eagerness for a happy ending forces him to contrive one.

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