DVD of the Week: Free Zone

My DVD pick for this week is pretty much unheard of, but well worth your time. It skews a bit artsy (ok, a lot), so mainstream movie lovers need not apply. Natalie Portman is the famous face that secured Free Zone it's limited theatrical release more than a year ago and the movie opens with a painful, hauntingly tragic shot of Ms. Portman weeping hysterically for a full, uninterrupted 7 minute take. Here she plays a broken hearted American named Rebecca who has just split from her boyfriend and now finds herself idle in his home nation of Israel. She gets in a cab and tells the driver, Hanna (scene stealer and Cannes Best Actress trophy winner Hana Lazlo), to just drive as far away as possible with no real destination in mind. The two women bond on their journey, and become involved in a number of subplots that pertain particularly to the conflict in Palestine as Hana has business to attend to in the "free zone" of Jordan. While writer/director Amos Gitai is clearly using the film to personify the Israel/Palestine issue through the characters of Hana and eventual business associate, Leila (Hiam Abbass), a Palestinian, all the talk of crossing borders and struggling for liberation plays more keenly as a metaphor for Rebecca's own desperation to exert an identity and escape the "in between" feeling of her change from dedicated significant other to single woman. It's about the discovery of personal identity and the defining of national borders and the many obstacles standing in the way of both these things.