This 'Bride' battles the inflexibility of Mideast

Mona is a woman in a no-man's land, a Druze among Muslims and Jews, a stateless soul in contested territory.

She lives in a nook of the Golan Heights, a Syrian outpost occupied by Israel since 1967. Her faith is not traditionally Islamic.

When Mona weds a Syrian soap opera star and crosses the border into his country, she will never be able to return to her village of Majdal Shams as long as Syria and Israel are in conflict.

Cowritten by Eran Riklis, who is Israeli, and Suha Arraf, who is Palestinian, The Syrian Bride is an engrossing absurdist comedy. It counts the many ways that nationalist bureaucracies and religious orthodoxies divide not only families, but also individuals. It illustrates how inflexibility, whether it is mandated by politics or religion, paralyzes citizens and the faithful.

Played by the lovely but worried-looking Clara Khoury, who essayed a similar role in the Palestinian seriocomedy Rana's Wedding, Mona symbolizes the subdivided soul. She lives in patriarchal, philosophical and geographical limbo.

Reluctantly, Mona submits to an arranged marriage because it is a custom of her sect. But she's not resigned to the inevitability that getting married means divorcing herself from her family of origin.

Given the politics of the Middle East and the religious strictures of the Druze, it takes a village of diplomats, U.N. workers and religious elders just to convey Mona to the border checkpoint. But will the guards let her cross?

Although Mona is the focal point of the film directed by Riklis, its emotional power comes from the character of Amal, Mona's elder sister, played by the phenomenal Hiam Abbass (Munich, Paradise Now).

Amal is the family's political ambassador and emotional mediator. As she reconciles the square peg of Israeli bureaucracy with the round hole of Syria's, her desire for a career with her patriarchal religion, and her estranged brother and father, Amal humanizes the themes of this remarkable film.

A keen observational seriocomedy, The Syrian Bride, like Paradise Now, suggests that all residents of the Middle East, no matter their faith or their nationality, are more alike than not.

Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com.

The Syrian Bride *** (out of four stars)

Produced by Bettina Brokemper, Antoine de Clermont-Tonnere, Eran Riklis and Michael Eckelt, directed by Eran Riklis, written by Suha Arraf and Eran Riklis, photography by Michael Wiesweg, distributed by Koch Lorber Films. In Arabic, Hebrew, French and English with English subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 37 mins.

Amal. . . Hiam Abbass

Hammed. . . Makram J. Khoury

Mona. . . Clara Khoury

Jeanne. . . Julie-Anne Roth

Marwan. . . Ashraf Barhoum

Parent's guide: No rating (mature themes, nothing unsuitable for those 10 and older)

Playing at: Ritz at the Bourse