From its opening moments, Assaf Machnes’ “Where To?” positions itself unmistakably as a character study, one less concerned with narrative propulsion than with the quiet accumulation of emotional detail. The film begins inside a taxi at night, the camera almost unwaveringly fixed on Hassan, played with remarkable restraint by Ehab Salami. Berlin flickers past as blurred light through the windshield, an impressionistic backdrop rather than a fully realized space. The passengers, the streets, even the city itself, feel secondary. What matters is the man behind the wheel. This formal choice establishes the film’s governing principle: the external world exists primarily as it registers on Hassan’s face.
Spanning from June 2022 through the end of 2023, the narrative unfolds across a period of immense geopolitical weight, while director Assaf Machnes resists turning that context into overt drama. Radio broadcasts about hostages in Gaza drift through the taxi’s interior, particularly in late 2023, but Hassan rarely comments. The camera lingers instead on Salami’s controlled, internalized reactions. The political landscape hums in the background, shaping the emotional climate without ever erupting into explicit confrontation. This refusal of didacticism is admirable, but it also typifies the film’s central tension: “Where To?” consistently gestures toward volatility without allowing it to fully surface. The editing is restrained and the pacing deliberate to the point of near stasis. Long takes dominate, particularly inside the taxi, where the confined space becomes a chamber for muted confession. The cool blue-gray palette and understated sound design deepen the melancholic tone.
Parallel to Hassan’s nocturnal routine is his fractured relationship with his daughter Nur (Raheeq Haj Yahia-Suleiman). Their exchanges are defined by emotional distance. When he asks her to return home, she instead urges him to meet her German boyfriend. Later, he learns she is engaged. Machnes avoids melodrama and rests on Salami’s impassive face, allowing micro expressions to carry the weight of generational displacement. His daughter embodies a future that has already moved beyond him. These scenes are quietly effective, but they also exemplify the film’s larger hesitation. The emotional stakes are unmistakable, though the storytelling rarely ventures beyond implication.
The film’s most dynamic thread involves Amir (Ido Tako), a young Israeli, played with vulnerability. Initially just another passenger, Amir reenters Hassan’s life months later as a Berlin transplant unraveling from heartbreak. His father died in the war, his romantic relationship is unstable, and his nights dissolve into alcohol and drugs. Amir’s confession that Berlin is not good for him mirrors Hassan’s own unresolved sense of exile. Over time, an unlikely bond forms between them. Amir admits he repeatedly cancels ride requests just to ensure Hassan is his driver. Hassan becomes a quiet caretaker, offering water, advice, and his personal number for future drives.
These interactions are the film’s emotional center, but even here Machnes maintains a careful distance. The generational, national, and personal tensions between a Palestinian father figure and a young Israeli man hold immense dramatic potential. The film chooses subtle recognition over confrontation, shared loneliness over ideological debate. While this restraint preserves complexity, it also softens the impact. Scenes that might have crackled with suppressed anger or grief instead remain contemplative.
The film is at its strongest when it edges toward emotional fracture and at its most frustrating when it withdraws just before impact. This dynamic crystallizes in a late encounter between Hassan and his former partner, a scene that distills both the film’s strengths and its constraints. What initially reads as another gesture of paternal distance slowly exposes a long-buried heartbreak that has defined his emotional paralysis for decades. By reframing his exile as romantic and deeply personal, the moment gestures toward rupture, yet the film ultimately retreats into restraint before it can fully resonate.
That same formal rigor shapes the work’s overall effect. An episodic structure softens narrative momentum, and the unwavering tonal control prevents key scenes from achieving their full emotional force. Political tensions remain atmospheric rather than interrogated, and personal revelations are implied more than excavated. The result is a film immersed in quiet contemplation, evocative but at times emotionally restrained to a fault.
What is safe to say is that “Where To?” is an introspective and carefully constructed character study about displacement, masculinity, and inherited grief. It trusts silence and subtlety, sometimes to a fault. What remains is a work of undeniable sensitivity and craft, yet one that ultimately stops just short of the emotional and political reckoning it seems poised to deliver.
