Lemon Tree opens with the Israeli defence minister moving in next door to a widowed Palestinian woman, whose house lies on the border between Israel and the West Bank. The Secret Service promptly order that Salma’s lemon grove be uprooted for fear that terrorists will seek cover among the lemon trees, and the film follows Salma (Abbass) and a sympathetic young lawyer (Suliman) as they fight the order in the Israeli courts.

The film, by Israeli director Eran Riklis, is relentlessly sad. There are no moments of tear-jerking tragedy; instead, Salma’s grief lingers over every character and scene. Her walled-off lemon trees wilt and droop as the case drags on, and her defiance is finally so futile it only serves to highlight her powerlessness. The case becomes complicated by the growing sympathy of defense minister’s wife (Lipaz-Michael) for the Palestinian woman next door. The two never meet, but their shared glances are loaded with meaning. When the minister’s wife tells the press “there is a lemon grove between us,” it is clear she is not speaking literally.

Through these small, understated moments, Riklis hints at countless other, similarly futile battles waged by West Bank Palestinians. In Salma’s silent resistance, and the unspoken expiry date on her blossoming friendship with the lawyer, Lemon Tree conveys a country’s share of grief.

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