The Other Son
Le fils de l'autre

French director Lorraine Levy takes on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a film that unfolds like a fable rather than a political message movie. Her spin on the old switched-at-birth/Prince and the Pauper premise resonates in ways that surpass the usual themes of class and identity or nature vs. nurture when two 18 year-old boys, a Jew and an Arab, discover they have each been raised by the wrong parents on the wrong side of the wall that divides their two countries.

There are several things that make this film special. Its simple, fable-like tone is offset by the cast's strikingly truthful and complex performances, with much screen time devoted to how each character deals with the challenging information and its ramifications. The choice to have these boys learn the truth when they are about to become men, rather than while they are still children, avoids the melodramatic potential of the premise and allows the film to focus on issues of choice and self-identity. Also, Levy gives most of the characters a connection to France that enables them to converse in French as well as English and their native tongues, making the use of language another potential bridge between these natural political enemies.

One of the reasons this plot device has proven so durable over the centuries is that the nuances of the stories are so different depending on where and when they are set. The West Bank setting opens up unique thematic layers and story details. Unfortunately, the film’s third act doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the first two. It's not that the film needs to suddenly become a bigger story than the small, personal parable that it is, but the issues it raises don’t build to anything truly moving or transformative. The moral of the fable, though, comes through quite well, and it conveys a universal message which is always important to be reminded of.