A Palestinian woman faces impossible choices

    Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad tackles a series of difficult issues in Huda's Salon, a movie in which a hair appointment triggers a complicated series of choices for a woman living in the West Bank. 

   Initially, it seems as if Huda's Salon will be a genial look at interactions between an ordinary woman and her hairdresser, a salon-based movie in which casual conversations become increasingly revealing.

   When the movie begins, Reem (Maisa Abd Elhadi) is having her hair washed by Huda (Manal Awad), who owns the salon that gives the movie its title.

   The two chat about Reem's controlling husband (Jarwal Masarwa). Reem wants to return to work as a hairdresser; her obsessively jealous husband wants her to play the traditional roles of wife and mother to their infant daughter.

    Then, the entire shape of the movie shifts. 

    It's difficult to say more without including spoilers, but I'll tell you that Huda involves Reem in a situation that puts her under great stress. She connives to force Reem into spying for the Israelis. 

    The rest of the movie involves the ways in which Reem tries to escape the vice grip of a situation in which there seem to be no good choices. 

      Huda eventually falls into the hands of the resistance and is subjected to interrogation by Hassan (Ali Suliman).  Scenes between Huda and her captor feel a bit like a stage play in which two opposing characters learn that they share some of the same weaknesses.

    An Israeli presence is mostly implied but it's clear that Abu-Assad wants to explore life in a pressure cooker environment in which issues of patriarchy, politics, and betrayal collide.

    Elhadi conveys the fury and frustration of a woman trapped by marriage and circumstances over which she has little control. Awad's Huda expresses the deep resignation of a compromised woman who long ago abandoned hope that she could survive.

    Abu-Assad ratchets up tension -- even though his direction hardly can be called slick or supple. 

    By the time Huda's Salon concludes, we're as conflicted as the characters about the harsh decisions they're forced to make. I'm guessing that's precisely where Abu-Assad wanted to leave us.

Their affair crosses dangerous lines

A look at the complications that ensue from a tryst between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man.

Saleem and Sarah are having an affair. She owns a small cafe in Jerusalem. He delivers baked goods to the cafe. Both are married to other people and neither seems interested in abandoning his or her family. She’s the mother of a young daughter. He’s about to become a father.

So what’s this relationship about? Maybe nothing more than sex and novelty. Maybe Saleem and Sarah are turned on by risk. Palestinian director Muayad Alayna isn’t especially interested in what brought these two people together; rather, he dramatizes the dangers that arise when lines are crossed by people who live on opposite sides of an explosive cultural, religious and political divide.

Alayan bases the prosaically titled Reports on Sarah and Saleem on a real-life story that allows him to deal with the ramifications of an affair that exposes each of its participants to unexpected consequences.

Saleem (Adeeb Safadi) resides in East Jerusalem but also makes some deliveries in the West Bank for his brother-in-law (Mohammad Eid), a well-connected fellow who offers Saleem a chance to earn extra money. A trip to Bethlehem with Sarah (Sivane Kretchner) sparks a bar fight that produces a series of events that lead to the jealous Saleem's arrest by the Israelis.

Further complicating matters, Kretchner's Sarah is married to an Israeli colonel (Ishai Golan) who deals with security matters. What will happen if he learns that his wife has been sleeping with an Arab-Israeli who has fallen under suspicion of spying on the Israelis?

For her part, Saleem's pregnant wife (Maisa Abd Elhadi) must face difficult truths about her husband; her character grows in strength as the movie unfolds.

The movie's complications and coincidences sometimes feel far-fetched. But considering where Sarah and Saleem live, we're willing to go along with the story, and Alayan winds up with a movie that sometimes ties us and his characters in knots.