| ||||||||||||||
From director J.J. Abrams comes the next installment in the Star Trek saga, Star Trek Into Darkness. Watch it in theaters now and pre-order on Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, DVD, and the Exclusive Starfleet Phaser Gift Set. Shop Star Trek Into Darkness and more in the Star Trek Store. Learn more |
Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
Special Features
- Commentary by director Eran Riklis
- Interview with Hiam Abbass
- "Making Of" Featurette
- Trailers
- In Arabic, Hebrew, English, Russian and French with English subtitles
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
A statement about borders--and the absurdity of bureaucracy--The Syrian Bride strides sucessfully between tragedy and comedy. Mona (olive-eyed Clara Khoury, Rana's Wedding) is the bride. She lives in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights. According to the opening title, "Druze loyalty is split between Syria and Israel." Tallel (Derar Sliman), her husband-to-be, resides in Damascus. She has never met him--though she has seen him on TV (he's a soap star). Once Mona crosses into Syria, she won't be allowed to return. Hence her wedding day begins on a somber note. Mona’s family has problems of its own. Political dissident father Hammed (Makram J. Khoury, Clara's real-life paterfamilias) has recently been released from jail, and it looks as if he may be sent back again (for defying parole). Older sister Amal (Paradise Now’s Hiam Abbass, who steals the show with her slow-burning intensity) is experiencing her own marital strife, while her daughter is seeing a pro-Israeli Druze. As for Mona’s brothers, Hammed refuses to speak to Hattem (Eyad Sheety), who moved to Russia eight years ago and has returned for the wedding, non-Muslim wife and son in tow. And just in from shady business dealing in Italy is Marwan (Ashraf Barhom), the family screw-up, i.e. a gap-toothed charmer devoid of scruples. Directed by Israel's Eran Riklis (Borders ) and co-written by Suha Arraf, a Palestinian-Israeli, The Syrian Bride takes an occasionally schematic, if admirably even-handed look at ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Product Description
Mona’s wedding day is the saddest day of her life. She knows that once she crosses the border between Israel and Syria to get married, she will never be allowed back to her beloved family in the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. Once you cross the border there is no way back and at the end of a long day, the family, the government and military officials and all those gathered on both sides of the border find themselves facing an uncertain future, trapped in No-Man’s land between Israel and Syria.
Awards:
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; FIPRESCI Prize
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; Grand Prix des Amériques
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; People’s Choice Award
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
Winner 2004 Locarno International Film Festival; Audience Award
Winner 2004 Flanders International Film Festival; Audience Award
Winner 2004 Flanders International Film Festival; Best Screenplay
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
39 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The Syrian Bride is one of a string of well done European-Israeli movie productions. The producers and the cast are mostly Arab Israelis. While the movie might seem to carry political connotations it is in fact a sociological masterpiece.
The setting is Majdal Shams - the biggest town of the Golan Heights - a Syrian territory which Israel occupied in 1967 and annexed in 1981. The characters are Druze, a Middle Eastern sect that endorses a peculiar religious belief borrowed mainly from Greek mythology, Hinduism and Islam.
The movie highlights the national loyalty of the Golan Druze, which has remained presumably pro-Syria. It also depicts the difficulty this community endures as it lives on different sides of a land controlled by two enemy countries: Syria and Israel.
But the movie is not only about national affiliations and living hardships. It is an emotionally powerful film that penetrates into the deep sociological makeup of the Druze community in specific and the Middle Eastern community in general.
First, the wedding of the bride, Mona, to a fianc? she never met, exposes the fragility of arranged marriages. Mona not only had to surrender to an unknown fate as she marries Talal who lives on the Syrian side, she also had to give up on all of her family and neighborhood since once she left the Israel-occupied territory to Syria, she would never be allowed back. The scene highlights the high risks Arab brides take when they settle for arranged matches that they would never be able to give up on in the future.
But the film does not leave the question of the arranged marriages unanswered as it introduces Mona's elder sister, Amal, who had earlier settled for such an arrangement and now lives under the misery of a conventional husband with whom she does not share anything except for their two daughters.
The rigid Druze marriage system does not affect only women, however. Another sibling of Mona and Amal, Hattem, had been married to a Russian for eight years. Since he had taken up a wife from outside the community, Hatem was being cast out not only by his father, but also by the whole community. The movie cleverly depicts how Hatem's father, Hameed, was under pressure from the community's elders to boycott his son.
The film is certainly one of the best works in this regard about one of the Arab world's most undiscovered sociological aspects. The acting is great and the production is very much up to standard. I recommend you own it and add it to your library of best foreign films.
The setting is Majdal Shams - the biggest town of the Golan Heights - a Syrian territory which Israel occupied in 1967 and annexed in 1981. The characters are Druze, a Middle Eastern sect that endorses a peculiar religious belief borrowed mainly from Greek mythology, Hinduism and Islam.
The movie highlights the national loyalty of the Golan Druze, which has remained presumably pro-Syria. It also depicts the difficulty this community endures as it lives on different sides of a land controlled by two enemy countries: Syria and Israel.
But the movie is not only about national affiliations and living hardships. It is an emotionally powerful film that penetrates into the deep sociological makeup of the Druze community in specific and the Middle Eastern community in general.
First, the wedding of the bride, Mona, to a fianc? she never met, exposes the fragility of arranged marriages. Mona not only had to surrender to an unknown fate as she marries Talal who lives on the Syrian side, she also had to give up on all of her family and neighborhood since once she left the Israel-occupied territory to Syria, she would never be allowed back. The scene highlights the high risks Arab brides take when they settle for arranged matches that they would never be able to give up on in the future.
But the film does not leave the question of the arranged marriages unanswered as it introduces Mona's elder sister, Amal, who had earlier settled for such an arrangement and now lives under the misery of a conventional husband with whom she does not share anything except for their two daughters.
The rigid Druze marriage system does not affect only women, however. Another sibling of Mona and Amal, Hattem, had been married to a Russian for eight years. Since he had taken up a wife from outside the community, Hatem was being cast out not only by his father, but also by the whole community. The movie cleverly depicts how Hatem's father, Hameed, was under pressure from the community's elders to boycott his son.
The film is certainly one of the best works in this regard about one of the Arab world's most undiscovered sociological aspects. The acting is great and the production is very much up to standard. I recommend you own it and add it to your library of best foreign films.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
By Compusurge
Format:DVD
The best thing about The Syrian Bride is that while it tells the story of one family, it also tells an even bigger story about how an entire population of people are caught in a political no-man's land in northern Israel.
At the center of both of these stories is Mona, a woman, living in the Golan Heights of Israel, who is planning to marry a Syrian, living in Syria. At issue is that 'once she crosses the border into Syria, there is no coming back' to her Druze village nor her family. The bigger issue is the fact that this all exists, and the Druze people are caught in this no-man's land.
That being said, this film is emotionally powerful, and even a non-foreign film fan will get caught in the storyline about a wedding, and about family. The acting is fantastic, the photography is superb, and I highly suggest that while this has nothing to do with My Big Fat Greek Wedding in any way at all, I kept thinking about that classic as I watched The Syrian Bride. I believe this is destined to be a classic itself....all it needs is time.
At the center of both of these stories is Mona, a woman, living in the Golan Heights of Israel, who is planning to marry a Syrian, living in Syria. At issue is that 'once she crosses the border into Syria, there is no coming back' to her Druze village nor her family. The bigger issue is the fact that this all exists, and the Druze people are caught in this no-man's land.
That being said, this film is emotionally powerful, and even a non-foreign film fan will get caught in the storyline about a wedding, and about family. The acting is fantastic, the photography is superb, and I highly suggest that while this has nothing to do with My Big Fat Greek Wedding in any way at all, I kept thinking about that classic as I watched The Syrian Bride. I believe this is destined to be a classic itself....all it needs is time.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
While open hostilities currently prevail between Israel and its neighbors, this film tells of a relatively more peaceful time in the recent past when the Golan Heights have been separated from the rest of Syria by Israeli occupation. Like the wall dividing East and West Berlin, the border fences, check points, and no man's land keep apart members of families, whose lives must now accommodate political differences and national interests originating in cities far away and played out in bureaucracies that are mindless, petty, and impersonal. Against this background, the characters in this film attempt to have a wedding in which the bride and groom come from opposite sides of the border.
While this particular boundary crossing is fraught with difficulties, the bride's family has many inner divisions of its own, between father and son, husband and wife, and father and daughter. Meanwhile, the father of the bride is repeatedly confronted by an uncompromising Israeli army officer and the village's pro-Syrian sheikhs are delivering ultimatums of their own. There is enough dramatic conflict for an Altman movie. The Syrian bride of the title eventually is revealed as the unhappily married wife of a traditionally conservative husband who wants to keep her from pursuing a professional career.
One of the best dramatically honest films I've seen in a long time. The DVD includes an informative making-of featurette, which explains something of the complexity of a multi-national film project shot in the Middle East - and at the wrong time of year. Israeli-born Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass, who plays the sister of the bride, is wonderful.
While this particular boundary crossing is fraught with difficulties, the bride's family has many inner divisions of its own, between father and son, husband and wife, and father and daughter. Meanwhile, the father of the bride is repeatedly confronted by an uncompromising Israeli army officer and the village's pro-Syrian sheikhs are delivering ultimatums of their own. There is enough dramatic conflict for an Altman movie. The Syrian bride of the title eventually is revealed as the unhappily married wife of a traditionally conservative husband who wants to keep her from pursuing a professional career.
One of the best dramatically honest films I've seen in a long time. The DVD includes an informative making-of featurette, which explains something of the complexity of a multi-national film project shot in the Middle East - and at the wrong time of year. Israeli-born Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass, who plays the sister of the bride, is wonderful.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a great film!
Truly a cultural foray into such a different world. So wonderfully acted, filmed and written. For what it's worth, I highly recommend it!
Published 3 months ago by Monica A. Sloan
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good movie.
I really enjoyed the movie and it kept my attention through to the end. I only wish that it had been in English. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Renee G. Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bought to show my Students
I teach Arabic to high-schoolers and this was a movie that brought up some good cultural practices, issues that the come up in the Palestinian/Israeli and surrounding areas, and... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Michelle
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Syrian Bride
This DVD is excellent. Kept me absorbed every minute. You get a good understanding of a woman's place in Muslim society. Price was great and it arrived when I was told it would. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Bahia Abrams
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Good
Shows the human trauma of being Palestinian in Israel as a woman decides to marry a Syrian man knowing that when she crosses over to Syria she will probably never be able to return... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Hayro
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly great movie that reveals lots of problems
The democratic State of Israel should be congratulated for allowing the filming of this award-winning movie about the difficulties faced by the Druzes, a people who live in the... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Israel Drazin
5.0 out of 5 stars
A revelation
One of the best films I've seen in many years. Not the usual western attempt for romance or tear jerking. Read more
Published on March 30, 2011 by H. V. Gael
1.0 out of 5 stars
Distorted view of Israel
As a film it's professionally made. However, Israeli films like this one, Lemon Tree and others like James Journey to Jerusalem, Beaufort, and Waltzing With Bashir cause great... Read more
Published on January 22, 2010 by Jon Stevens
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Identity: unidentified"
The Syrian bride is a Druze woman from the Golan Heights, (Syrian land that fell under Israeli occupation in 1967) who is getting married to a Druze man, who lives in Syria. Read more
Published on August 24, 2009 by Medusa
5.0 out of 5 stars
One woman's nightmare
I really liked this film. Having traveled internationally, I know the difficulties associated with obtaining the correct document with the correct stamp from the correct office. Read more
Published on August 19, 2009 by Donna L. Cornelius
