Orange People
Orange People
| 01 January 2013 (USA)
Orange People Trailers

Grandma Zohara occupies a special role within the Moroccan community within Israel. By cradling an object brought to her by her clients, Grandma Zohara gains access to the family's past through her dreams. This allows her to advise families on future decisions. Lately, however, Grandma Zohara is tiring and begins searching for someone to take over this role. She discovers that the only other person endowed with the power of dreaming is her daughter, Simone, who has different plans for her future. With support of Simone's sister, Fanny, who arrives unexpectedly from Paris, Simon gathers the strength to resist her mother's pressure and to pursue her own desire. Together the sisters wage battle for Simone's independence and creativity.

Reviews
Palaest recommended
Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie
Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
Nozz It seems that when the Israeli cinema turns its attention to the country's Moroccan community, it likes to dwell on the community's embrace of the supernatural-- in the previous films "Sh'chur" and "My Lovely Sister," and in "Orange People" as well. The writer/director has explained that "orange people" is a metaphor for "creative people." In this movie, the creativity gene passes from generation to generation, but in each generation it's expressed differently and the result is intergenerational tension. The linchpin of the movie is Rita Shukrun, who impressively portrays the matriarch, a sleeping prophet a bit like America's Edgar Cacye. There is a conflict between her two daughters, who are both more concerned with creating cuisine than with fortune- telling, but the script chooses to postpone the revelation of the reason for that conflict; I think that in doing so, the script sacrifices some traction. Another problem is that the major male character is rather a cipher, missing the magnetism that the script seems to attribute to him. But on the positive side the movie offers lush visuals, including location shots from Morocco, and the drama is seasoned with plentiful humor and intriguing dream sequences. Everything is integrated into a vision in which the progress of the generations is, like walking, a sequence of repeatedly losing and regaining balance.