L.A.ISRAELI FILMFEST

by Alex Deleon

In a country based on the decimation of half the world's Jewish population in WWII (the Holocaust), the constant need to apply military pressure on menacing Arab neighbors in order to survive, and a culture steeped in Biblical morality, it is not surprising that many of the new Israeli films reflect soul-searching ambiguity over relations with the Palestinians, and the general anxiety in the air.

"Rock The Casbah" is a painful view of the touchy relations between some not overly willing Israeli soldiers sent in to quell the uprising in Ghaza during the Intifada of 1989 and an Arab family whose roof they temporarily occupy as an observation post.

"Room 514" is a soul searching investigation into the use of excessive force against Arab civilians by a young Israeli officer who is otherwise regarded as a war hero. The zealous female interrogator, a sexy young Russian immigrant, is a female Women's Libber to the core...

"SHARQIYA" is a piquant study of the forced expulsion of a peaceful Bedouin family from their ramshackle tin dwellings in the southern desert near Be'er Sheba when their tiny “village” is bulldozed over to open up the land for other uses.

"Dr. Pomerantz" is a jugular vein black comedy about an unemployed suicide hotline psychologist who lets private clients determined to end it all, jump off his twelfth story balcony for a steep monetary consideration. In the end he follows suite but on the way all of Israel's collective angst is philosophically dissected against a background of quotations from Camus's existentialist classic, "The Myth of Sisyphus".

"Rock The Casbah" is debut feature by Yarivz Horowitz, a former military field photographer, who witnessed close-up the kind of action we see in this film. While this is a fiction film it looks almost like a document. Five young recruits are sent to Ghaza and told the action will be over in a week. In actual fact it lasted many months. They are immediately confronted by hails of rock and deadly molotov cocktails thrown by the youth of the town and one of them is killed by a washing machine dropped from the roof of a building. The soldiers are frustrated by the fact that they are not permitted to use live ammunition, only rubber bullets and tear gas. The roof of the building is taken over as an observation post by the remaining four soldiers but to get there they must pass through ther apartment of the family from where the washing machine came. They set up camp and play loud rock music on a ghetto blaster to pass the time while subsisting on horrible C-ration canned foods. From below they are constantly taunted by Arab youths

The father denies any knowledge of where the fatal washing machine came from although it is his son who dropped it. Many confrontations with the Arab family occur. They claim the soldiers have no right to invade their privacy and are aghast when one of them brings a pet dog through their quarters -- anathema in an Islamic household. The father pleads with them to leave the premises so that others around will not see him as a collaborator. Just about every issue between Jews and Arabs one can think of comes up in the course of the film and the Israeli soldiers, especially their brutal commander, are depicted almost like Nazis invading Jewish households, with their disrespect for local customs. One of the soldiers is an out-and-out Pacifist and complains that he was recruited to fight enemy soldiers, not civilians, This is the entire tenor of the film --how much right to Israeli soldiers have to hassle civilians in the defense of Israel? In the end, when the washing machine assailant is spotted among a group of stone throwers, it is the pacifist who pulls the trigger to kill him. This picture can easily be seen as pro-Palestinian, but also as a defense of what Israeli soldiers are called upon do in the line of duty -- a sympathetic portrayal of non-professional soldiers caught up in an impossible situation surrounded by hostile hate-filled Palestinian civilians --and therefore as Pro-Israeli. Director Horowitz stated that it was his intention not to take sides but to show the messy situation as it is with all the unpleasant realities and paradoxes involved. However you look at it this is a very powerful film and will rock audiences whatever their political persuasion.

 

Assi Dayan, has a lot on hIs mind

Assif (“Assi”) Dayan, now 67, is the son of the famous one eyed Israeli field general Moshe Dayan whose eye patch made him instantly recognizable around the world. This son of a celebrated father soon became a celebrity in his own right as a popular movie actor and then moved on to film direction.  “Dr. Pomerantz”, his latest film, is nearly a one-man show. Dayan wrote the script, directed, and acted himself in the quirky titular role of an impoverished psychiatrist who encourages clients to commit suicide by jumping off the balcony of his high-rise apartment –for a steep price.  Twelve stories up, he charges them 100 shekels per floor (1200 shekels) and another 800 for a final consultation before ending it all --total 1200 shekels. Quite a fancy price that looks like it will soon allow him to normalize his lifestyle -- until mounting guilt impels him to take the plunge himself.

This absurd framework, with lots of black humor along the way, basically serves Dayan as a vehicle to express his ideas on everything he sees as out of kilter in Israeli society today via the complaints of his patients and his own philosophical views. Among the complaints are loneliness and isolation coupled with Holocaust hangover, anxiety over whether Israel can continue to exist, doubts about relations with Arabs, internal relations with North African Jews, marital infidelity and children who can’t take life in the Promised Land and run off to India.  One jumper was a gung-ho former colonel in some kind of death squad takes the leap into the void in full military regalia while shouting Viva Israel!  When the police clean up squad headed by a cynical Moroccan Jew start becoming suspicious, Pomerantz has a bold women suicidenik (Mrs. Zimmer) use the back window.  Later, after the doctor’s own leap her daughter will show up and be saved from joining mother below by the Doctor’s wimpy son who is a universally despised dispenser of parking tickets, providing a slightly upbeat ending to a basically depressive tale.  At one point I asked myself “why am I watching this?”-- but got caught up in the overtones of the twisted battiness and had to see it through to the end.

Some would call this a “black comedy”, and there were indeed many chuckles heard throughout, primarily coming from Israelis in the audience familiar with the Hebrew slang with which the picture is peppered, however I saw it more as a pathetic tragedy presented in superficially comic terms –but still a tragedy—a kind of collective gallows humor in a country constantly faced with terrorism and the threat of annihilation.

“Room 514” is kind of a companion piece to “Rock the Casbah” in that it is also a film that addresses the internal conflict within Israeli Society between acute security needs and essential Jewish morality, in this case by bluntly questioning Israeli military behavior against Arab civilians. Anna is a young attractive Russian immigrant who will soon be going to law school and is fulfilling her military service obligation as an interrogator in army legality cases.  The case assigned to her is one of alleged physical abuse of Arab civilians beyond the call of duty by a small patrol in the occupied territories.  She is a relentless questioner out to prove herself and the male chauvinism of the hardened soldiers under questioning does not phase her in the least. Bit by bit she dredges up the embarrassing facts until finally the leader of the group, Davidi, a war hero is forced to admit his guilt. A general is called in to try to pressure her into dropping the case but it’s too late –Davidi, to save face has committed suicide.

Other than a brief breakaway for a panting quickie with her superior officer and a couple of bus rides home after work, almost the entire 90 minutes of the film take place in the single room of the title in head to head confrontations, and is filmed in relentless facial close ups most of the way creating an intense claustrophobic space enclosing the mounting drama.  

This is literally a chamber piece on a small canvass, but a very promising directorial debut by Sharon Bat-Ziv.  The film has traveled to many festivals and actress Asia Naifeld, who plays Anna and is in every single scene, was nominated for an Israeli Oscar as best actress in 2012.

All of these films were supported by the Israel Film Fund (Keren Kolnoa Israeli) which indicates an open-mindedness and self criticism one could hardly expect from filmmakers on the other side of the fence.