In Between

A sis­ter­hood that forms in frac­tured cir­cum­stances is at the cen­tre of this poignant debut fea­ture from direc­tor Maysa­loun Hamoud. Fol­low­ing Leila (Mouna Hawa) and Salma (Sana Jam­melieh), the film offers an engag­ing cel­e­bra­tion of young and care­free Pales­tin­ian women liv­ing in Tel-Aviv, still adher­ing to lin­ger­ing tra­di­tions that exert con­trol over them. Should they speak Ara­bic or Hebrew? Should they dress con­ser­v­a­tive­ly or wear what­ev­er the hell they want? Do they care for your opin­ion in the slight­est? The film is an ener­getic and resound­ing mid­dle fin­ger to such pres­sures and stereotypes.

Hamoud high­lights Tel-Aviv as a space thriv­ing with the rhythm and colour of met­ro­pol­i­tan life, a hedo­nis­tic play­ground far removed from the con­straints of reli­gious cus­tom expe­ri­enced by new arrival Noor (Shaden Kan­boura). An ortho­dox Mus­lim, Noor occu­pies the room vacat­ed by her cousin in Leila and Salma’s flat, bring­ing with her a pal­pa­ble air of con­cern min­gled with curios­i­ty. She is a stu­dent of com­put­er sci­ence, engaged to a man she does not love.

This cre­ates an obvi­ous clash with the free­wheel­ing intox­i­ca­tion, open sex­u­al­i­ty and female cama­raderie prac­ticed by her room­mates. The apart­ment becomes a tan­gi­ble rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the ​“in between”, act­ing as both drug-scat­tered dance floor for a hap­py-go-lucky clique, and a clean, respectable envi­ron­ment in which Noor can cook for her fiancé́.

As Noor peeks into this vibrant side of life, the lim­i­ta­tions by which she is most clear­ly affect­ed become more appar­ent. This oasis of inde­pen­dence is under a con­stant threat, from par­ents with high expec­ta­tions to boyfriends with a creep­ing duty towards social con­for­mi­ty which rears an ugly head from under the sur­face of their super­fi­cial lib­er­al­ism. All three women are cre­ative, intel­li­gent and joy­ous, yet exhaust­ed from bat­tles they should not have to fight. The men around them seem intent on tear­ing them apart like the food they crush with their hands at the table, as if they were ripe grape­fruits rather than human beings.

Hamoud’s film is con­cise yet enthralling. It invites the view­er into this closed enclave, but push­es back just as the pro­tag­o­nists start to dance along the metaphor­i­cal ​“in between”. Leila, Salma and Noor are beau­ti­ful­ly depict­ed as indi­vid­u­als, but also as an ad hoc fam­i­ly unit. When trau­ma strikes, they form the fiercest col­lec­tive shield and demon­strate the deep­est strengths of friend­ship and pro­tec­tion. Hamoud is bold in her approach to scenes of vio­lence, mak­ing the sup­port shown among the three women all the more affecting.

The pow­er of the film is clear in its deci­sion to pro­mote female friend­ship with­out the need for rival­ry, dis­agree­ment or divi­sion. These women learn from each oth­er and reject those who expect them to change. The cam­era rarely leaves their side, pre­fer­ring to cap­ture domes­tic per­son­al spaces rather than fill mat­ters out with bustling colour from the wider cityscape. The out­side world, with its regres­sive atti­tudes, does not win here, but the women of In Between, with their cool resilience, absolute­ly do.