Switched at birth

Yankees or Red Sox. Coke or Pepsi. Apple or Microsoft. Ford or Chevy. Democrat or Republican. Folks who favor one above the other have a hard time picturing themselves making the switch.

It’s as close as some of us will ever get to the switched at birth scenario imagined by screenwriters for “The Other Son,” which opened this season’s “Talk Cinema” series Tuesday night at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts. The series features screenings of independent films curated by critic Harlan Jacobson, moderated by local film experts.

Tuesday’s film was introduced by Chris Hazeltine, who teaches 8th grade English at Sonoran Hills Middle School in Phoenix and is an adjunct faculty member at Paradise Valley Community College. Hazeltine also moderated a post-screening discussion of the film, and shared his own take on the work — describing it as an “elegant” treatment of controversial subject matter. In some ways, reflects Hazeltine, the story feels Shakespearean.

Alon (Pascal Elbe), Orith (Emmanuelle Devos), Leila (Areen Omari) and Said (Khalifa Natour) star in the Cohen Media Group release of “The Other Son” directed by Lorraine Levy

“The Other Son” introduces two families, one an Israeli family living in Tel Aviv and another a Palestinian family living on the West Bank. Each couple has a teenage son born the same day at a hospital in Haifa, Isreal. They learn after blood tests yielding seemingly impossible results that the boys were switched at birth when grabbed in haste from a shared little baby bed during a bombing.

Hazeltine notes that while the Isreali/Palestinian conflict could easily have been overpoliticized, screenwriters Lorraine Lévy, Nathalie Saugeon and Noam Fitoussi opted instead to bring a global issue down to the family level.

The film, which Lévy directs, was shot on location in Israel and the West Bank. Cinematography is by Emmanuel Soyer. Many scenes feature water or sand, and plenty of drama takes place in cars or family kitchens. Costumes by Rona Doron and Valérie Adda convey generational and cultural differences and changes.

Joseph (Jules Sitruck) and Yacine (Mehdi Dehbi) in the Cohen Media Group release of “The Other Son” directed by Lorraine Levy

“The Other Son” is a human tale of how we form and preserve identity. It’s a quiet film with long pauses between dialogue, allowing viewers time and space to process how they might feel and react in similar circumstances. I’d love to see it adapted for the stage.

Viewers witness the impact of the news, and its implications, on four parents, two couples, several siblings and the two sons. When a doctor confirms the hospital mix-up with both sets of parents sitting together in his office, the mothers take comfort in discovering they’ve got something else in common.

The fathers, each in his own way, leave the room — and end up silently sharing coffee together at a nearby cafe. When the families finally meet, younger sisters quickly head off to play together while an older brother stews in anger.

The son raised in Israel wrestles most with questions of Jewish identity, asking his rabbi whether he’s still Jewish. Ultimately, the son decides that genetics forms too narrow a basis for identity. The circumstances and experiences of our upbringing matter too.

“The Other Son” explores much more than two teens’ experiences — raising questions about differences between genders and generations, about the ways spouses tackle tough news alone or together, about disparities in living conditions between people populating the same region.

Yacine (Mehdi Dehbi), Amina (Diana Zriek), Leila (Areen Omari), and Said (Khalifa Natour) in the Cohen Media Group release of “The Other Son” directed by Lorraine Levy

The film is filled with gentle humor, touching moments between people who might never had met without the hospital happenstance, and beautiful music created for the film by Dhafer Youssef. Often it’s music that brings people together, helping to forge identities that blend old and new, traditional and modern.

“The Other Son,” which is being distributed in the U.S. by Cohen Media Group, opens in select theaters on Oct. 26. It’s rated PG-13 and runs 105 minutes. The film features four languages — French, Hebrew, Arabic and English. It stars Emmanuelle Devos, Pascal Elbé, Jules Sitruk, Mehdi Dehbi, Areen Omari, Khalifa Natour, Mahmood Shalabi and Bruno Podalydes.

The current “Talk Cinema” series continues with monthly screenings of film-festival fare at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts through May 2013.

— Lynn

Note: Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts also presents filmed performances in the San Francisco Opera’s “Grand Cinema Series.” You can watch Puccini’s “Il Trittico” on Nov. 7.

Coming up: More opera offerings, Finding film in unexpected places