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Sand Storm Movie Review

Sand Storm is a 2016 Israeli drama film directed by Elite Zexer. This is a very complex film about the problematic role of women in Arab societies.

In Southern Israel, a teen’s forbidden love affair challenges the traditions of her Bedouin mother and father. Each of these women challenge their roles in their own ways. First and foremost, I personally did not know that Israel had a Bedouin community in the south of the country, so this was quite a revelatory film in that regard.

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Judging by the title of the movie, you’d expect an epic action movie, but there are no storms to be found here whatsoever, except of the intimate variety. The inner turmoil in these women is the brewing storm of the movie and the dialogue is particularly strong at examining it.

The performances from both of the actresses are phenomenal and both Layla and Jalila were superbly developed. The men were sidelined here, which was a problem as a movie with a similar theme, such as ‘The Perfect Candidate’ managed to examine their issues as well. But still, these two are the heart and the core of the movie and I loved their dynamic.

Elite Zexer clearly did not take any sides in this issue and that was done for better and for worse. On the one hand, the film’s treatment and humanization of the conservative Arab women was welcome, but the movie failed to properly criticize the horrendous women’s rights in all these societies.

Still, the complex relationship between mother and daughter and their different attitudes was phenomenally realized and that was by far the best part of the movie. You do realize where they’re coming from and that was very clever writing.

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My issue with Sand Storm is its handling of technical aspects. Yes, we get to see how difficult and closed off the Bedouin community is in Israel, but still the cinematography and the score as well as the editing were not nearly as cinematic as I thought they would be.

Sand Storm is an Israeli drama that depicts the difficult life of their Bedouin community and their problematic patriarchal family units. Depicting these two very different women, the mother and their daughter, and their complex relationship and different views was fascinating, but the movie not taking sides was ultimately not the best choice. The movie is very well written, but limited in scope.

My Rating – 4