Last night I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Boston opening of what is billed as a joint French, Belgian, Italian, Israeli film, Live and Become.

The film is rich, sweeping history as it follows the life of one boy's journey to manhood and from continent to continent, family to family, religion to religion, language to language.

Here is the story of the Jews of Ethiopia. In the beginning we meet a Jewish mother in a Sudanese refuge camp -- a camp where thousands have come, Jew and non-Jew alike, fleeing war and starvation in Ethiopia -- a journey thousands of less fortunate others failed to survive. We meet this woman only to watch her young son dying in her arms.

This was 1984/1985 during Operation Moses, an airlift of thousands of Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel was ongoing. A Christian mother with a son about the age of the deceased Jewish child sees her chance, and sends her own son to stand in line with Jewish mother, to pretend to being her child, to tell no one, to go to Israel...with no more instruction or purpose than to "live and become."

No sooner do our newly named "Solomon" and his new, protecting foster-mother, arrive in Israel than she succumbs to an illness of some sort (probably TB) and "Shlomo" is alone once again, an orphan in Israel, and here is where his second journey, his journey within Israeli society, begins.

There is a simultaneous fascination and a tension throughout. Watching the movie as a meta-documentary on the travails of the Ethiopian Jewish community as they struggle to adapt from a virtual iron-age existence to a modern, technological Israel is an interest grabber that keeps us glued to the screen and looking for details throughout -- news reports on TV, newspaper headlines, the intricacies of Israeli internal politics...they are the canvas upon which this story of an individual life is painted.

The tension is, of course, Shlomo's secret. A secret he keeps from all -- the state authorities looking for non-Jews among the refugees, his friends, schoolmates...even his adoptive family. If not quite a Maguffin, the importance of the specifics of this secret are somewhat muted as the story is really the story of the new arrival, not only marked out by strange habits, but skin color as well.

And the troubled Shlomo is adopted, by two Leftist Israeli parents with two children of their own who view it as something of a patriotic and humanitarian duty to take in this young newcomer. Here come another set of eyes through which to watch the history of the late '80s and '90s roll by. We watch television news as the hope of Oslo and a White House peace treaty signing come across, we see family tension as Leftist parents debate whether to stay in Israel or leave, the father, adamant about staying, yelling something along the lines of, "If we leave, who will there be left to vote for peace? Those right-wingers?" But here is another spot where the film succeeds in being special, because adoptive father Yoram is no pacifist, as we discover when young Shlomo resists joining the army, instead opting to go to medical school in Paris -- a shunder for his father, "All our family has served."

It's a great success of the film to give us the complex and interesting look at Israeli "inside society" and "inside politics" that it does. This is something not seen often. Yet here is one of its failures as well. It perhaps tries a bit too hard to show a bit too much. For instance, we have a scene where Shlomo is ready to come home from Paris as a Med School grad when he's told by the Ethiopian community leader not to, as the authorities are in the middle of a round-up of non-Jewish Africans and Russians who came to the country under false pretenses. From there we have an immediate shift to Shlomo in the middle of a war zone as an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) medic in a powerful scene of him trying to save a young Arab's life, only to have a pistol shoved in his face by the child's father who calls him a kike and carries the child away. Again, quick, too quick, to a hospital room and then the wedding scene. The head spins.

Any one of these vignettes could have been developed far more deeply, though it's understandable they couldn't be -- at 140 minutes the film is already at about the limit the modern audience can probably enjoy. Still, a bit more in the transitions would have helped.

This is a quibble. In many ways, this is a familiar American immigration story in a different language, but in such a different milieu as to captivate us all once again. Live and Become is an exceptional film, something really different that's well worth the time and spilled popcorn.

Following the film we were treated to a live appearance by the film's star, Sirak Sabahat (link to Sabahat's blog), who plays the adult Shlomo. This is an exceptional young guy whose personal story is almost as colorful as the character he plays. Sabahat himself is an Ethiopian Jew who's family crossed the desert at great risk (drinking their own "personal stuff" to survive) and came to Israel in what amounts to a real-life adventure tale. Though English is about his fifth language, his personal message of hope and peace is a great credit to Israel and the Ethiopian community there. He spoke for a few minutes and then took questions from the audience.

He also introduced a fellow Ethiopian-Israeli with a similar important and hopeful story to tell. I summarize it here in brief: His family made it to Khartoum, Sudan and his mother was fortunate enough to find employment as a housekeeper for a Muslim family who treated them kindly and generously. It took more than two years, but the Muslim father who had connections in the Khartoum government managed to secure them a pass to travel, though he knew that they were heading for an escape to Israel and would never return. Stories like this are important to hear, I think.

Here is the audio of Sabahat's introductory remarks. I've clipped off the Q&A portion. You might give it a listen if you've got the time (sorry for the quality or lack thereof).

Live and Become is now playing at the West Newton Cinema.

View the trailer here.