Toronto. The Band's Visit.

"Israeli writer director Eran Kolirin's first feature The Band's Visit, a deceptively modest comedy about an Egyptian police orchestra's trip to Israel, comes as sweet balm in a season of terrorist thrillers and vigilante splatter-pics," blogs the LA Weekly's Ella Taylor. "Played mostly by Palestinian actors, the band gets misdirected to a hole-in-the-wall development town where they're hosted in with varying degrees of good grace by local Sephardi families, among them a sexy but lonely free spirit beautifully rendered by Ronit Elkabetz, whom you may remember from another excellent Israeli comedy, Late Marriage. With its arresting powder-blue palette and gentle wit, this goofy charmer, which Sony Pictures Classics will release in 2008, offers the sweet credo that the road to conciliation begins not with politicking but with conversation, tea and sympathy, and a little bit of cross-cultural nookie."

Updated through 9/24.

"The Band's Visit may be a bit too small-scale to flourish outside of the rarefied atmosphere of a film festival or an art house," writes James Rocchi, but it "plays out remarkably like the event it depicts: Unexpected, but more than welcome."

"[H]umorous, touching in spots, and completely understated," blogs the Enzian Theater's Matthew Curtis.

Earlier: Reviews from Cannes.

Update, 9/24: "The Band's Visit has just swept Israel's Ophir Awards (the equivalent to that country's Oscars) so this means it should be Israel's submission for the Academy Award's Best Foreign Language Film," notes Nikki Finke. "But even with the Kodak Theater ceremony still 5 months away, there's already controversy in this category. Rivals are claiming that the political movie, about an Egyptian police band that mistakenly ends up stranded overnight in a small Israeli town, has more than 50% English dialogue and therefore must be ruled ineligible for the nomination."

Posted by dwhudson at September 23, 2007 3:08 PM