This fascinating look at the changing political landscape of a long-embattled region opens on a gorgeous horizon, with bicyclists tearing down golden hills. It’s all beauty and light for a good long while in Israeli director Nadav Lapid’s auspicious debut feature. One of the bicyclists will return home to view his unblemished face in a mirror, gently massage the tired legs of his very pregnant wife and offer an impromptu dance to cheer her up before heading to a picnic. There he will engage in a playful group grapple with his mates in counter-terrorist police work. Yet this perfect picture of human virility soon takes on a treacherous dimension after misdeeds conducted by members of the unit go public. A dramatic 180-degree turn midway through the film introduces a completely new narrative—one involving a separate but connected reality, as young ideologues plan a violent act of guerilla class warfare. What’s most interesting in this structurally inventive drama may not be where the narrative shatters and reconstitutes, but where the literal battle lines in this timely struggle are drawn.

Director Nadav Lapid was born in 1975 in Tel Aviv, Israel, and attended the Sam Spiegel Film School, where he produced short films that screened at the Cannes, Locarno and Berlin film festivals. He has directed one full-length feature, Policeman (2011); his shorts are Emile’s Girlfriend (2006), Road (2005) and Border Project (2004).