If an Israeli and a Palestinian worked together to make a film, what would you expect them to produce? A story of cooperation? A story of conflict? A version of Romeo and Juliet? Would there be a terrorist? Ajami is none of these. (Well, just a small hint of Romeo and Juliet is included.)

Nominated for an Oscar, Ajami is set in a rough neighborhood in Jaffa, Israel. We see five interwoven stories dealing with Palestinians, Bedouins, and Israelis; Jews, Muslims, and Christians. These are not lives revolving around political conflict. Rather they are lives of people that are struggling to cope with survival in difficult circumstances. The various ethnic and religious divisions are fairly unimportant.

The interactions between people are not between types, but involve the relationships of individuals. The most central story deals with a family that has managed to get in a feud with a Bedouin clan. As violence escalates and expands, a deal is brokered to settle the problem with money. But how can they get this much money? Other stories involve a police officer whose brother has been killed, the death of one of the neighborhood young men (murder?), Muslim/Christian romance, and illegal immigration.

This is the kind of urban drama that could be set just about anywhere. It could be in East L.A. or a Rio favela—anywhere people are desperate for a better life. When things often seem hopeless, people may turn to violence or crime or drugs as ways out of their darkness, yet it seems that those routes always lead to an even deeper gloom.

The film is divided into chapters, but each chapter has overlaps with other parts of the story. The narrative structure of the film can be a bit confusing until you get the hang of it. It does all coalesce at the end, but it is definitely a winding road to get there. Along the way we see that violence begets violence, and that there are no easy ways out of troubled lives.

Scandar Copti, an Israeli Arab, and Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew, collaborated in writing and directing the film. When one considers the centrality of political struggle in that nation, one might expect a story that dealt with Gaza, or the security wall, or bombings. Instead, they made a film that never mentions the political struggle—only the struggle of people in difficult situations. Perhaps ignoring all the politics of the setting was one of the strongest political statements Copti and Shani could make.