We are in the midst of the worst African famine in my lifetime, and this movie demonstrates that there have been bad times before now. Set in the mid-1980's, the movie opens with a boy, Solomon, dying in the arms of his mother Hana in a Sudanese refugee camp, having walked away from the fmaine in Ethiopia. Hana agrees to smuggle another boy, a Christian boy, out to Israel under a Jewish guise. Hana tells him that he can never reveal this secret, and he lives a Jewish life in Israel, being adopted after Hana dies early on.
The movie is about his secret, the racism he is subjected to, and the suspicion that he has pretended to be Jewish to get a better life--which is actually true. The politics of race and religion are complicated in Israel, and 'Schlomo' (as he is known) grows into an angry man, longing for the other who gave him up, and having a hard time committing to the woman who loves him and is having their child. Israel is a country of immigrants, and this movie highlights some of the difficulties faced by an entire people who have left their homes, many experiencing significant trauma, and who are tied together by religion.
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