Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

rogerdarlington How does one tell a story about something as huge and complicated as the Arab/Israeli conflict? This 2008 Israeli film - made with German and French support - meets the challenge by reducing the situation to a struggle over a grove of lemon trees. This particular grove is owned by a Palestinian woman Salma Zidane (played wonderfully by Hiam Abbass) located on the Israel/West Bank border where the new Israeli Minister of Defence Israel Navon (Doron Tavory) chooses to make his home with attendant security issues that are eventually taken all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court. If this seems a rather contrived situation, then it's as well to appreciate that the story is inspired by the actual case of Minister Shaul Mofaz. There are no real villains in this well-intentioned, quietly understated tale, just conflicting views of culture and entitlement that lie at the heart of the wider conflict itself that seems without end.

Errington_92 Lemon Tree explores the callous side of human nature within a class divide as a woman's property becomes under threat by a selfish neighbour who happens to be the Defence Minister of Israel. Upon commenting on Lemon Tree Director Eran Riklis stated it was his intention for the audience to sympathise with every character yet in the case of myself as the viewer, my sympathy lay with victimised pauper Salma.She is the woman whose life is turned upside down when Defence Minister Israel Navon and his wife move next door to her and her lemon grove. To Navon the lemon grove is not a piece of beauty but rather a terrorist threat which needs to be removed so that his new home will be safer and better secured. But to Salma it is the personification of herself, a sacred piece of land in which she has put her love and devolution into retaining its longevity, going to great lengths to protect her lemon grove. Even when she is offered compensation for the proposed destruction of her lemon grove she states that "no amount of money can compensate", it gives Salma a characteristic quality which makes her a respectable figure to support. Despite the strength she has in fighting Navon for her lemon grove Salma is also shown to be a emotionally vulnerable woman. Dreaming about lemons falling down in the grove Salma awakens with the shadow of a lemon tree moving in an almost haunted fashion to show the extent of Salma's fear. It is such visual moments in Lemon Tree which work to a great advantage, no need for dialogue as the visuals shown hit us to the core.This visual aspect comes into play in the wonderful non – verbal relationship between Selma and Mira which symbolises the beauty of human nature. After a number of subtle glances at one another Mira's respect for Selma comes to fruition after she apologies for her husband's hypocritical selfishness after taking lemons from her grove. Like Selma, Mira shares the burden of loneliness due to the absence of children and is against her husband's plans to destroy the lemon grove sharing Selma's love for nature. They both also lack proper male companionship with Selma's husband dead along with having conflicting feelings for a younger man and Mira's husband makes her a prisoner in their home with the exaggerated use of armed security. In a defining moment Mira crosses over the lemon grove to connect with Salma. She looks through Salma's window to see her crying over the pressure of the situation. Mira being affected by this outpour of emotion is stopped by security just as she knocks on Salma's door. This short scene is capable of summing up the class divide which is causing damage both internally and externally. Mira was only trying to make a connection with Salma which both of whom would have benefited from; instead they are effectively barred from each other due to the class divide caused by Navon using his power to threaten Salma's livelihood. It makes one wonder if people such as Mira and Selma were in Navon position then they would no be abusing their power and destroying the lives of others, a tragedy of human nature which is shown to its fullest in Lemon Tree.The result of Navon's callous nature along with the authority he works with results in Salma's lemon grove being reduced to nothing in an unforgettable final bleak shot. However it also comes at a price for Navon, with Mira leaving him along with his view now being a dull grey security wall instead of a vivid lemon grove leaving no one was victorious by the end showing the ridiculous extent of the situation which could have been resolved in a more pleasant manner.Lemon Tree is a beautiful film both aesthetically and in its plot, although it shows the destructive side of human nature can cause as in the plight of Salma yet it also shows a wonderful aspect which is possible in humanity even if it did not prevail this time. One for a belief in justice and dedication for the right thing rather than lying down for people's harmful motives.

Linda This film is rich in irony. It presents a microcosm of Israeli-Palestinian relations that go nowhere and lack empathy, but create torment for both sides. The Israeli Defense Minister and his wife (the Navons) move into a large, modern home at the Green Line, the border of the West Bank of the Jordan River to the east. Their neighbor is a middle-aged widow (Salma Zidane) who lives alone in a stone house and tends a lemon grove she inherited from her father from which she ekes a modest income. She is assisted by an elderly man who has worked for the family for 50 years. The defense minister's nervous security chief draws down on the two of them as they walk through the grove and surprise him. They never give each other more than uninterested glances. The defense minister accepts the advice that the grove must be cut down for security purposes.The widow receives notice written in Hebrew from a Hebrew-speaking soldier. She does not speak the language and goes to a town elder to translate, invading the all-male sanctum of a social hall. Although the letter offers the possibility of compensation, the elder warns her that her people do not ask the occupying Israelis for it. Soon the grove is fenced in and posted. When she sees the trees turning brown from lack of water and lemons spoiling on the ground, Salma climbs the fence in the long dress to care for the trees. She panics even the distracted soldier in the watch tower who spends time in the tower listening to tapes with inane sample questions to prepare for a logic test. He speaks Arabic, so they can converse.Salma finds a Palestinian attorney in town in a shabby office to take her appeal of the taking of her grove to Israeli court. His name is Daud and like the David of the Jewish Bible, he agrees to take on the giant. He doesn't ask for a fee. The minister's wife (Mira Navon) observes the widow several times. Their eyes meet, but they never greet. They wouldn't likely be able to speak a common language if they did and learn that they each have a child living in Washington DC whom they call. They are close in age and similar in appearance, tall and slim with long, brown hair. One dresses in pants suits, the other in dark long skirts and head covering in front of men. Mira asks her husband to dissolve the order to rescind the order to cut down the grove. He says he will rely on the decision of the Israeli security service. When the Navons throw a big housewarming party, they serve catered Mideastern food, taking care it is kosher for their politically connected orthodox guests. When they realize the caterer did not include an important item, lemons, they send a couple of soldiers to collect some from the fenced grove. When Salma sees them, she climbs the fence again and physically struggles with the soldiers, falling to the ground and being dragged briefly until the minister orders the soldiers to stop. The minister's wife apologizes in Hebrew, her first spoken words. The party is interrupted by gunshots coming from the grove. Armed soldiers search the widow's house for terrorists and leave its contents in shambles after they don't find anyone. Meanwhile their conflict attracts local, then international, news. The grove owner loses in the military court. She wants to appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem. In the end the solution is not satisfactory to either side, not an uncommon result in litigation. Could the Israeli defense minister and the grove owner found a way to resolve their concerns in a mutually agreeable way? Probably if they had tried to talk. Both sides were defiant. Will their respective peoples be able to resolve their disputes and live in peace and cooperation for a better life? The film does not give as hope, but shows the need.

Turfseer The Lemon Tree (Etz Limon) attempts to reduce the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a simplistic tale of David vs. Goliath (in this case, David being a disenfranchised Palestinian widow to the Goliath of a newly installed Israeli defense minister). The plot is fairly simple: Defense Minister Israel Navone has just moved in next door to Salma Zidane's lemon grove, which has been in her family for years; Navone's secret service detail deems the grove to be a security threat and so it must be cut down. Zidane objects, hires a Palestinian lawyer, who manages to get the case heard in the Israeli Supreme Court.It's hard to believe that an Israeli Defense Minister would move into a home on the border of the West Bank and right next to a home owned by a Palestinian. And wouldn't his security detail have initially nixed the entire idea of moving into a home which was right next to a lemon grove where terrorists could easily hide and launch an attack? Unfortunately, logic is dispensed with here in the service of making political points.Once again, as she did in indie film 'The Visitor', Hiam Abbass plays a Muslim widow of quiet dignity who also happens to be a saint. Along with a kindly housekeeper who has been working in the family lemon grove for years, the two characters bear the mantle of victimhood throughout the film. There is a slight attempt to humanize Abbass's character by showing her disappointment at a failed romance with her attorney, Ziad Daud. The source of her disappointment is an affair that Daud has been having with the daughter of a well-placed Palestinian official in Ramallah (not seen on-screen). While the affair should disqualify Daud for sainthood, in reality it doesn't!—since he agrees to forgo all fees for representing Zidane and is quite articulate in arguing her case in front of the Israeli Supreme Court, he is also promoted to the pantheon of Palestinian sainthood.'The Lemon Tree' makes a very good case for Palestinian oppression at the hands of the Israelis. In addition to the confiscation and ordered destruction of the lemon grove, the Palestinians are seen undergoing a slew of other indignities including disrupting curfews, warrant-less searches and downright theft (the defense minister's wife allows a local Palestinian caterer to take lemons from the now fenced-off lemon grove without paying the widow). The deck is completely stacked against the Israelis as their justifications in the name of state security are depicted as being an exaggeration and practically baseless (while gunfire is heard outside the Defense Minister's home, heaven forbid that there should be an actual Palestinian terrorist shown sneaking through the lemon grove or anywhere else for that matter in this film). The film is much more successful in depicting the upwardly mobile defense minister Navone convincingly played by Doron Tavory. Not only does he have to deal with his liberal wife who is appalled at the thought that the lemon grove has been confiscated and ordered destroyed but also must parry the blows from the liberal press who have made the fight over the lemon grove a national political issue. As the media vise tightens, Navone ratchets the double-talk up to the point where it appears he has deftly handled his opponents. But he wins no victories at the hands of the film's scenarists: at the end, he's a lonely and bitter man after his attractive wife leaves him not only due to his stance against the Palestinians but for conducting an affair with a pretty Israeli Army soldier. Not only are there really no 'bad' Palestinians shown in this film, none of their intractable political positions are explored including their demand for the right of return of the descendants of those Palestinians who left Israel in 1948 along with the refusal to acknowledge the existence of the Jewish State itself. Had some of these positions been made explicit in this political allegory of a movie, the message of the movie would not have appeared so one-sided.Had this been an American film, the Israeli Supreme Court would have sided with the Palestinians completely and ordered that the lemon grove be returned to Zidane. But this is no American feel-good film. Even the highly respected Israeli Supreme Court can't catch a break—their 'compromise' decision to prune the lemon grove only leads to its destruction. The widow Zidane forlornly walks through the decimated lemon grove as Israel must deal with its 'guilt'.In some respects, 'The Lemon Grove' ably makes its case for the source of Palestinian bitterness. In their zeal to maintain security, heavy-handed actions by Israeli security forces have led to a feeling of humiliation on the part of Palestinians. But on other occasions it's the Palestinians who have provoked a harsh Israeli response and the Palestinians are the ones who are loathe to take any responsibility for such provocative acts. When the deck is stacked so much to one side, the case for Palestianian rights loses credibility. The moral of this film should have been 'there are always two sides to a story'—but in this case, THE WAY IT IS EXPLORED HERE, the picture is skewed toward one side without proper balance. The result is a superficial examination and rendering of a complex political-historical conflict.