Ajami

Emotionally mesmerizing.

One of the pleasures of Ajami, a tough and in many ways unsparing movie, is its deep immersion in the beats and melodies of everyday life in Jaffa and beyond.

It’s much too easy to call Ajami an Arab-Israeli “Crash,’’ but it’s a pretty good place to start.

The main drawback to this noble effort, just nominated for the foreign-language Oscar, is that the two-hour film is unrelievedly grim and tense.

Time shifts may overcomplicate the narrative for some, but the pay-off packs a major punch.

While its themes of revenge, mutual resentment and grim fatalism offer little hope for a ready solutions, the movie itself testifies to the power of creative collaboration in finding common ground.

Shani and Copti (who costars as a hipster druggie) elicit moving performances from their nonprofessional actors, who ground the somewhat breathless action in a streetwise realism.