Brief Film Review: Last Dance

Recently I watched the 2012 Australian film, “Last Dance.” An elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor in Melbourne, named Ulah Lippmann (played by Julia Blake) is kidnapped outside her apartment by a radical Muslim, named Sadiq Mohammed (played by Firass Dirani). 

Sadiq is on the run from a suicide bomb attack on a synagogue—although he did not, in the end, kill anyone, failing to detonate the suicide bomb belt around his waist. He is suffering from a shoulder wound. 

At first, he treats Ulah rather roughly, ties her up, and covers her mouth. As time passes, Sadiq softens his approach, and Ulah, formerly a nurse, tells him that his wound requires attention—otherwise he will continue to lose blood and die. With the loss of more blood, he becomes unconscious. While he is unconscious, Ulah does not phone the police. Rather, she attends to his wound, and he gains consciousness.

On two separate occasions, Sadiq was close to being discovered—once by a neighbour, and once by the police. However Ulah was able to keep them at bay both times. 

As the movie unfolds, Ulah and Sadiq have engaging and tense conversations. Ulah tells Sadiq that she was the only one in her family to survive the Holocaust. She also says that prior to the Shoah, she married her husband, and by a miracle, after the Shoah, they were reunited, and moved to Israel. They also enjoyed dancing.

Sadiq then told Ulah that the Israelis came into Palestine and destroyed his family’s home, his dad’s shop, and killed both his parents, as well as his little 5-year-old sister. He was the only family survivor. 

Sadiq sees a photograph of a young man, and asks Ulah who he is, and where the picture was taken. She tells him it is her son, and was taken in Israel. She goes on to say that her son died as an Israeli soldier. After his death, she and her husband moved to Australia, and spent many years together before he died. 

Ulah succeeds in telling Sadiq that he can have a better future. So Ulah purchased an airplane ticket for Sydney, where Sadiq had university friends. When the ticket clerk asks who the ticket is for, Ulah states her son’s name—Ari Lippmann.

Back at her apartment, Ulah cuts Sadiq’s hair, he shaves off his beard, and Ulah gives him a suit to wear. Sadiq starts the record player, and they dance together—their first and last dance.

As Sadiq makes his way to the taxi, the police—obviously finding out that Sadiq was in Ulah’s apartment—kill him. Ulah lays over his dead body and weeps. 

This movie underscores the theme of “love your enemies.” In caring for Sadiq’s wound, hiding him, and listening to the tragic suffering in his life, Ulah transforms an enemy into a friend. Would that there were more Palestinians and Israelis like Sadiq and Ulah, that in deep listening and loving actions enemies would, by God’s grace, become friends.