The Wedding Song: a film by Karin AlbouThe Wedding Song, releasing shortly on DVD, tells the same story as a slew of recent films from or about the Middle East: a Jew and a Muslim, desperately in love, are torn apart by the cruel pressures of a world that cannot bear the sight of their union [David and Layla, David & Fatima et al]. Except this is not 21st century Israel or Palestine but 1942 Africa—Tunisia to be exact; and both the Jew and the Muslim are teenaged girls.

Myriam (Lizze Brochere) and Nour (Olympe Borval) are neighbors and lifelong best friends-and possibly more, judging from the omnipresent physical flavor of their interaction—who have, so far, evaded the chasm of the ethnic divide. But there is a war on, the Nazis have occupied the country, and the Allies are bombing furiously-prompting the Germans to escalate a propaganda campaign designed to isolate the Jews from their Arab counterparts. Nour and Myriam's relationship, starting to buckle under the weight of politics, is further threatened by the fact that each is on the verge of an arranged marriage: Nour to her hotheaded young cousin Khaled (whom she actually likes), and Myriam to an older doctor (Simon Abkarian) who promises her widowed mother security against the tumult of war.

Sophomore writer-director Karin Albou (La Petite Jerusalem) deserves kudos for having found a new setting for and a new angle on a familiar tale. Still, the telling of the tale is sadly predictable at each turn, and fraught with situations and dialogue that seem to be born more of convenience than of anything approaching reality. The performances are skillful, and the cinematography and art-direction are both first-rate. But the film's technical and artistic qualities only highlight the flatness of the characters and the contrived feel of a script that often threatens to dissolve into either didacticism or pure melodrama.

Sticklers for equity should also look elsewhere, as the two heroines are given wildly dissimilar treatment here. Myriam—beleaguered, politicized, defiant-remains steadfast and true, seeking out her Muslim friend even when things go from bad to worse, while Nour—naive to the bone—wiggles, wavers and waffles in her stance towards Myriam depending on which verse of the Koran she's most recently read, or how long it's been since one of her fiancé's anti-Semitic speeches. The same applies to the respective husbands-to-be: the Jewish doctor turns out to be a genuine benefactor who respects and acquiesces to his young wife's opinions and desires, while Khaled strives at every turn to control Nour's body and mind. Draw your own conclusions about Ms. Albou's ideological bent.

The film ends with the two women holding each other as bombs drop, each praying desperately in the language of her own religion. The scene, like the film as a whole, only serves to reiterate the great myth of modern progressivism: that we can embrace and love the ‘other' while clinging tightly to our own ethno-religious identities. Never mind that throughout the film (and throughout history) it is the very same identities that those in power exploit to further their own agenda.

Omid Arabian is a writer in Los Angeles who regularly reviews for Levantine Review.