How does one cope with the situation of children swapped at birth 18 years after the fact? How do the parents cope, how do the children cope?
This is the basic premise of Lorraine Levy’s THE OTHER SON (M) which adds another layer to this searing psychological upset by setting it in Tel Aviv and the West Bank with the inadvertent error complicated by the effected families on either side of the cultural and religious divide.
The error is discovered when Joseph, brought up Israeli by his soldier dad and medico mum, applies for national service and a blood test attests his biology is at odds with his parents.
Tracking records of the time and place of Joseph’s birth, hospital honchos in Haifa determine that the accidental swap occurred during a bombardment of the maternity ward and in the mayhem the mistake was made.
This warm, intelligent, human film invites us to empathise with these families and vicariously examine with them aspects and issues of identity, values and beliefs.
It is interesting that after the initial shock, the mothers are the ones to try and deal with the dilemma, the children next to act and the fathers lagging behind, rendered impotent in speech and action for a noticeably longer period.
Israeli mum is played by veteran French actress Emmanuelle Devos and the Palestinian mum is played with a beautiful serenity by Areen Omari.
Israeli dad is played by Pascal Elbe and Palestinian dad is played by Khalifa Natour, probably best remembered as the clarinettist in THE BAND’S VISIT.
The swapped pseudo siblings are superb as well, with Jules Sitruk as Joseph, raised as a Jew, now ostracised by the Rabbi as not really being one of the chosen because of his maternity and Mehdi Dehbi as the Palestinian raised Jew, Yacine.
THE OTHER SON could easily have gone off into bombast, banality, and cliché, but under Lorraine Levy’s sterling direction, it’s a film that harnesses the head and the heart to herald what we all share as humans. It also has what is possibly the best ending of any film released this year.