Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Moderate Jews and Arabs who just want to coexist in peace are squeezed out by armed extremists incited by nationalism, suspicion and fear.
Miguel Littin’s “The Last Moon” takes place not in the present, however, but in 1914 Palestine. While aspects of the story seem familiar from yesterday’s newspaper or previous movies, the historical setting gives the film a freshness and novelty.
Written and directed by the Chilean filmmaker, who shot on location in the West Bank, Bethlehem, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, “The Last Moon” is alternately offbeat and contrived. Jammed with moments of warmth, mystery and outright goofiness, it never fails to hold interest.
“The Last Moon” screens twice at the Mill Valley Film Festival.
The central relationship in the movie is between Jacob, a newly arrived Argentine Jew, and Soliman, a Christian Arab with a young family. Their affectionate bickering is clearly intended to resemble that of brothers.
The friendship — which is deepened by Soliman’s decision to sell some land to Jacob out of economic necessity, and then help him build a house on it — is a sore point with some of the neighboring Arabs. An aura of mistrust permeates the sunlit movie, which inevitably congeals into violence.
“The Last Moon” is not about land, though. Not only is the matter of biblical claims never broached, Soliman has cousins who left for Chile to build a new Palestinian homeland beyond the reach of the despotic Turks. (Littin comes from just such a family, which explains his interest in the subject.)
Meanwhile, no reason is ever given for Jacob’s arrival in Palestine. For most of the characters, Palestine is neither the Holy Land nor the Promised Land
By sidestepping the issue of territory, Littin might be accused of wearing blinders to preserve a can’t-we-all-just-get-along idealism. Or one can embrace his view that the direct experience of living alongside people of different religions and backgrounds is essential to overriding prejudice and dogma.
The only clear villains in “The Last Moon” are the Turks, represented by ignorant soldiers and the greedy and capricious Aga. Both Arabs and Jews suffer their bullets and taxes, and endure their rule.
The British defeat of the Turks, well into the film, eliminates that irritant. But the void leads not to celebration, but to anarchy and bloodshed.
Littin is evenhanded in ascribing blame for the inability of Jews and Arabs to achieve equilibrium. He provides an assortment of self-interested Arabs, notably a wealthy opportunist who collaborates with the Aga, a zealous insurgent (who is Soliman’s brother) and a braggart who passes himself off as a member of T.E. Lawrence’s army.
The Jews, aside from the educated but politically naïve Jacob, are embodied by kibbutzniks who show up with a cannon and rifles to wreak havoc. Their members include an enigmatic immigrant whom we first met when she was wounded by a Turkish soldier — and saved by Soliman. Since then, she has embraced a form of Zionism that cannot abide the Arab presence. Her transformation comes as a shock, and imparts a dark connotation to something said earlier in the film in jest: “As everybody knows in Palestine, the man shouts but the woman decides.”
Whoever made the decisions over the ensuing years leading to the current separation of Jews and Arabs, Littin suggests, has made a bad situation intolerable.
“The Last Moon” screens 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 9, at the Sequoia, 25 Throckmorton, Mill Valley, and 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 11, at the Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. Tickets: $8-$10. (925) 866-9559 or www.mvff.com.