Sallah Shabati, aka Sallah, is a 1964 comedy film from Israel directed by Ephraim Kishon.
Sallah Shabati (Chaim Topol, here credited as Haym Topol, sometimes credited as just "Topol"—yes, the Fiddler on the Roof guy), is a Yemeni Jew who has emigrated to Israel as part of Operation Magic Carpet
, along with his large family. The Shabatis are put in a transit camp ("ma'abarot") along with many other refugees arriving in the new state of Israel.
Sallah is a lazy rascal who prefers to sit around and play backgammon rather than, say, get a job. He has a lot of comic misadventures as he tries to get his family moved from a dirty shack in the transit camp into a new apartment. There's a lot of culture clash between Sallah, a traditionalist from a tiny community, and the forward-thinking, modernized Jews that operate the kibbutz that is next door to the transit camp.
Tropes:
- Angry Guard Dog: Sallah, scrounging for money, sees an ad for a lost dog. He brings the worried couple an Angry Guard Dog that is the wrong color, the wrong sex, and at least three times too large, and then he demands a reward.
- Arranged Marriage: Sallah wants to sell his daughter to a bus driver for 350 Israeli shekels. Then, a kibbutznik (who has no money) falls in love with her. Hilarity Ensues.
- Briar Patching: How Sallah gets out of the transit camp.
- Brick Joke: Relatively early in the film Sallah accepts money to manually carry a bookcase, only to abandon it in the open air when the kibbutz manager won't give him more money to actually carry it upstairs into a building. Late in the film the bookcase is shown still out there in the open, with cars steering around it.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Sallah is a whimsical sort. When asked if the old lady in the truck with him is part of his family, he says he doesn't know, but she must be because she's traveled so far with them. When it's time for the elections, instead of picking a ticket for one party and putting it in his envelope, he shoves a whole bunch in his pockets and then stuffs the envelope so full it won't go in the box.
- "Eureka!" Moment: After failing to get reward money for finding a lost dog, Sallah reflects on a comment of Goldstein's about how people never get what they want. He says "If I wanted to stay in a transit camp forever, they'd probably want me..."—then realization dawns, then he continues—"...in a house!" The next scene has him leading a protest at the housing authority, demanding to stay in the transit camp.
- Face Palm: Sallah's buddy Goldstein makes a face palm when, on election day, Sallah tries to stuff a ballot envelope fat with ballots from every party into the ballot box.
- Fake Town: Played with. It's not a town, but a forest planted by the Jewish National Fund (who employs Sallah to plant the trees), and it's very much real —it's just the sign that says who paid for the trees is switched out whenever a new philanthropist comes by to see how "his" trees are doing. Sallah doesn't understand this and thinks it's dishonest, which leads to him getting fired.
- Fish out of Water: Much humor is derived from the culture clash between a traditionalist Jew from a rural town and the modern Israelis living in the kibbutz. When the managers of the kibbutz scorn Sallah for his "barbaric" tradition of demanding a dowry, he shoots back that the people in the kibbutz only dislike traditions that don't benefit them.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Sallah refuses to talk to women (except for Batsheva), which becomes problematic every time he interacts with the kibbutz's female leader Freda.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: When the cab driver stops to give Sallah a ride, the cab driver's American girlfriend is already in the car. As the American snuggles up to the cab driver, he tells Sallah in Hebrew how he doesn't really like her and he really wants to marry Sallah's sexy daughter Habuba. The two men then proceed to discuss the dowry, the cab driver's girlfriend unaware.Cab driver: The silly bitch is in love with me. She has a lot of money.
- "I Know What We Can Do" Cut: Sallah's "Eureka!" Moment, in which he realizes that the best way to leave the transit camp is to pretend he doesn't want to, is followed by a cut to him doing just that, leading a protest in front of the housing authority.
- An Immigrant's Tale: A Jew from a remote community has to adjust to live in modern Israel—or, more accurately, get everyone else to adjust to him.
- Ironic Juxtaposition: The opening scene has an American tourist getting off the same plane that has brought Sallah and his family. The tourist seems to have lost a suitcase, so he counts off six kids; Sallah seems to have misplaced a son so he counts off six children.
- Love Triangle: A triangle between Sallah's daughter Habuba, her admirer Zigi from the kibbutz, and the cab driver, who isn't as good-looking as Zigi but has the money for Habuba's dowry.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Ends with Sallah and his family on a truck, being driven out of the transit camp and into the nearby apartment blocks where they are getting a home.
- Oh, Crap!: The kibbutz votes on adopting the ma'abara, and everyone votes for it except Zigi and Batsheva, who weren't paying attention, until they're prodded and raise their hands. The kibbutz leadership then asks who wants to volunteer to actually work with the ma'abara and everyone puts their hands down—except Zigi and Batsheva, who once again weren't paying attention and have this reaction when they realize what happened.
- Punny Name: "Sallah shabati" is a play on the Hebrew phrase "Sliḥa she'bati", or "I apologize for coming", which might be better idiomatically translated as "Excuse me for living!".
- Reverse Psychology:
- Zigi lives in the kibbutz and has no money of his own. Freida the kibbutz manager flatly refuses to basically buy a bride for Zigi, pronouncing the custom "barbaric". So Sallah says fine, he doesn't need anything, and he doesn't take money from "poor people". Freida is offended and winds up paying the dowry from kibbutz funds after all, although the transaction is soon nullified when Sallah has to fork over a dowry for his son Shimon to marry Batsheva from the kibbutz.
- Used again at the end, when Sallah realizes the only way to get a house is to act like he doesn't want one.
