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Israeli Movie Reivew: ‘Jaffa’ – A Middle-Eastern ‘Romeo and Juliet’ that misses the mark by Hannah Brown

 

Two stars 

Directed by Keren Yedaya. Written by Yedaya and Ayala Ben Porat. Hebrew title: Kalat Hayam. 100 minutes. In Hebrew and Arabic, check with theaters regarding subtitles.

 

            Keren Yedaya took the film world by surprise when her feature, Or, won the Camera d’Or prize for first-time directors at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. The story of a devoted but confused daughter, Or (Dana Ivgy), caring for her AIDS-infected streetwalker mother (Ronit Elkabetz) in Tel Aviv was stark and shocking. Yedaya’s second feature, Jaffa, was eagerly awaited, but this Israeli-Palestinian version of the Romeo and Juliet story sacrifices vivid characterizations for the sake of its allegory, and never comes alive.

            Jaffa takes place just a few minutes away from the teeming streets of Ajami, Israel’s Oscar-nominated film, and perhaps it’s not a fair comparison, but while Ajami was loud and filled with energy, Jaffa is plodding and melodramatic. It focuses on an Israeli family that owns a garage in Jaffa, where their daughter, Mali (Dana Ivgy), falls in love with a young Palestinian mechanic, Tauffik (Mahmood Shalaby). They keep their relationship a secret from her very conventional family, although her father, Reuven (Moni Moshonov), is a fair boss to Tauffik and his father, Hassan (Hussein Yassin Mahajne). Her mother, Ossi (Ronit Elkabetz), is a bit bossy and self-absorbed, but it’s Mali’s brother, Meir (Ro’i Assaf) who causes the problems. A lazy, whining shirker, he enjoys bossing his two Arab workers and is jealous that they are much better mechanics than he is. Mali doesn’t care much about her brother’s problems, since she is so focused on her love. When she discovers she is pregnant, she and Tauffik plan to marry in Cyprus. But then a tragedy happens, that inevitably derails everyone’s plans. A second section of the movie takes place several years in the future, but it’s best not to reveal the details here, to preserve some suspense.

            This plot summary may make the film sound more romantic than it is. Mali and Tauffik’s love is a done deal when the film opens, so we don’t get to see them discovering each other or struggling with convention or their own preconceptions. They are so noble, they can’t really be sexy together. In scene after scene, we get to watch Mali’s family, mainly her father and brother, bickering around the dinner table, while her indulgent mother tries to play peacemaker. The brilliant actress Ronit Elkabetz is utterly wasted in this colorless role. All she does is sit at the dinner table and try to get everyone to eat the rather unappetizing-looking meals she serves. This movie brought to my mind a measure I call “The Bus Test”: If I were sitting near these characters on a bus, would I listen avidly to their conversation, getting caught up in their drama, or would I switch seats because they are so petty and grating? Unfortunately, the family in Jaffa flunks the Bus Test. This is a Romeo and Juliet story where we spend most of our time listening to the Capulets argue, and what’s the point of that?

            A great deal of good acting goes to waste here. Yedaya remains the only director I’ve seen to date who is able to coax nuanced performances out of the usually one-note Dana Ivgy. Elkabetz, ever the diva, has too much presence for her role. Moni Moshonov does his best in the thankless part of the exasperated Israeli patriarch, as does Hussein Yassin Mahajne in his parallel role. Mahmood Shalaby is extremely handsome, but doesn’t get much to do other than be victimized. 

            The Romeo and Juliet story has been retold and transposed again and again, to the streets of New York in West Side Story, and to a showy US suburb in Romeo + Juliet. But in all the successful retellings, the directors never lost sight of the fact that the story, while ultimately tragic, has to be sexy and fun along the way. The lovers must be truly alive before we can care about their fates.  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict definitely would make a superb backdrop to a new and fresh version of the story, but we’re still waiting for it.

New Israeli Movie Review: An Offer You Can Refuse – Honor is The Godfather, Israeli-style by Hannah Brown

Liran Levo, Zeev Revach and Shmil Ben Ari in "Honor"/Courtesy

Two stars

 

Written and directed by Haim Bouzaglo. 110 minutes. Hebrew title: Kavod.

In Hebrew, with a little French and Arabic, no subtitles.

 

            They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if this is true, then Francis Ford Coppola must feel very pleased with Haim Bouzaglo’s latest movie, Honor. It’s a scene-by-scene reworking of The Godfather, Israeli-style, except for a few scenes in which it apes Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas and the HBO series, The Sopranos. The acting is mostly good and, at times, it’s fun to note the differences between Mizrahi Israeli crime families and their Sicilian counterparts abroad. But the lack of originality begins to nag as the movie goes on, as does the absence of memorable characters. If there is any point to the movie, it’s to show how these Moroccan crime families developed to fight The [Askhenazi] Man, and so, since these mobsters are really warriors for social justice, they are surprisingly nice. Sure, there are a couple of clumsily staged brutal murders, but mostly, this is a walk on the mild side.

 

 

            The cast list is a who’s who of Israel’s veteran actors. A surprisingly subdued Ze’ev Revach, once the king of Israeli cinema, plays Don Corleone – uh, I mean Leon Marziano, the patriarch of one of two rival crime families. He’s the moral mobster, the one whose credo (like Corleone’s) is “no drugs.” His competitors are the marginally slimier Bardugos, a family controlled by two brothers. One, Herzl Bardugo (could that first name have some symbolism?), played by the always irritated Shmil Ben Ari, is in jail, but he still participates in Friday night dinners via cell phone. His brother, Amos (Amos Lavie), is in charge in his absence, but Amos gets involved in with a coked-up Czech call girl, a storyline that neatly combines Tony Soprano’s Russian girlfriend scenario and Henry Hill’s second mistress in Goodfellas. There’s a certain amount of plot that revolves around a very forgettable group of police officers trying to crack down on the mobsters (lots of luck, as we know all too well from real life), and a bitter fight over control of a casino in Serbia, not a very attractive substitute for Las Vegas. Leon Marziano, a family man, has a son, Miro (Liran Levo), who is a decorated IDF officer, and he fulfills the Michael Corleone role to a T. When a member of the Marzianos, the weak-willed older son (think of Fredo Corleone) gets involved with some Arab heroin dealers in a bid to prove his independence from his more charismatic brothers and father, a chain of events is set into motion that starts a war between the two families. But the Marziano’s straight-arrow son Miro and Denny  (Natali Atiya), the Bardugo’s feminist lawyer daughter, negotiate a peace agreement at a Dead Sea resort, and also, of course, fall in love. But the truce doesn’t hold – a few minor characters get knocked off, and eventually, the movie winds down.

            Setting a movie like this in Israel provides for a few witty touches, such as plot lines that are resolved at the brit mila for Marziano’s grandson. You’ll recall that all the loose ends of the plot in The Godfather are tied up during the christening for the Godfather’s grandson, but if there were ever a religious ceremony that lends itself to male-dominated Mafia symbolism, it’s a brit mila. Many actors and actresses wander in and out, do their scenes and leave, such as heartthrob Moran Atias (who has been starring recently on the US television series, Crash), Marziano’s sexy daughter who falls for the wrong guy; former model Shiraz Tal, as another daughter; and Reymond Amsalem (last seen in 7 Minutes in Heaven), as the daughter-in-law who gives birth early on.

            Haim Bouzaglo, a director who moves back and forth between commercial schlock (such as Blind Date) and artistic schlock (Distortion), may emulate Coppola, Scorsese and David Chase (the creator of The Sopranos) but let’s just say he doesn’t represent serious competition for any of them. All the storytelling is basic, and he can’t set up a scene so that it transcends its genre, or its predictability. Being derivative isn’t necessarily bad, since all directors borrow from films they admire, but the great ones (and even the good ones) struggle to add something of their own to the mix. But Bouzaglo doesn’t even seem to try this, so for most moviegoers, Honor will be an offer they can refuse.

New Israeli Movie Review: There Were Nights

There may have been nights, but this isn’t much of a movie

By Hannah Brown

Written and directed by Ron Ninio. 90 minutes. Hebrew title: Hiu Leilot. In Hebrew and Russian, some prints have English titles

One star

Moshe Ivgy and Dana Ivgy in "There Were Nights"/Courtesy

Much has been written about the banality of evil, but the new Israeli film, There Were Nights, is just plain banal. While it was made by a group of talented actors and is carefully done, it is utterly superficial. There is no subtext, no surprises and no real character development. It relies throughout on a familiar, soap-opera formula, but lacks the energy and sense of fun that gets viewers hooked on soaps. Perhaps it is unfair, but given the huge improvement in recent Israeli films, a movie like this seems like an uncomfortable throwback to a time when no one expected much from Israeli movies.

The film goes back and forth between two time periods in the life a single family. Goni (Maya Cohen in the early scenes, Dana Ivgy in the later sections) is the daughter of Yitzhak (Moshe Ivgy), a Tel Aviv theater director who directs musicals and is in the midst of rehearsals for his latest extravaganza, a show about Sherlock Holmes. Goni loves to sit with her mother (Jenya Dodina) and watch rehearsals. The child is utterly captivated by the play and besotted with her father, but full of her own opinions about how he should do things. Her life is not perfect, however. Her father doesn’t get along with her mother’s Russian-immigrant family so well, and her mother gets annoyed when her father answers the phone during dinner. But then Yitzhak is arrested for faking expense reports and their lives fall apart.

Although Yitzhak only serves a short jail term, he comes back a broken man. When he gets the chance to direct fringe theater in the basement of the theater where he used to be the star director, he is outraged (as is his wife): How could he not be reinstated to his former high-profile position? In the later period, he lives at home with his daughter. Suffering from a heart condition, he takes it for granted that his daughter will devote herself to taking care of him, since her mother died of cancer years before. But when the adult Goni, who has no life to speak of apart from her father, gets him the chance to direct again, he has to decide. Will he pull himself together and rise to the challenge?

That’s the whole movie, and it’s so pat that even great acting couldn’t have saved it. Moshe Ivgy and Dana Ivgy, real-life father and daughter, are obviously comfortable in their scenes together, perhaps too comfortable. Moshe Ivgy gives a low-key, effective performance here, and it works. But Dana Ivgy, who became a star with her role as the glum prostitute’s daughter in Or, gives another of her poker-faced, monotonous performances. The poker face worked for her in Or, and now she varies her usual expression, which looks like she is suffering from a touch of nausea, with a very pretty smile. But flashing the smile from time to time and going right back to the poker face cannot substitute for more dynamic acting. I have seen almost every film performance Dana Ivgy has done in the past decade, certainly all of her major roles (and even some student films she has appeared in) and I’ve held back from criticizing her too strongly because she was so young. But now she is 28, and I don’t see her developing as an actress. Her one- or two-note performance here is in sharp contrast to Maya Cohen, who plays the same character as a child. Cohen gives an expressive, natural and charming performance, and I was always sorry when the movie moved into the later periods. Jenya Dodina doesn’t get to show what she can do in the rather thankless role of the long-suffering mother.

One note on the plot: The recent film, Elie and Ben, also told the story of a child whose father was arrested for embezzlement. Is this becoming a normative experience for Israeli children, since corruption is so common? If so, let’s  hope the next director to tackle it finds a more interesting angle.

New Israeli Movie Review: Phobidilia

Don’t leave the house for this movie about a shut-in

Two and a half stars

Directed by Doron Paz and Yoav Paz. Written by the Paz brothers. Based on a novel by Yizhar Har-Lev. 87 minutes. Hebrew title: Phobidilia. In Hebrew and English, check with theaters for English titles.

 

It’s hard to make an engaging movie about a creepy, alienated person, but the directing team of brothers  Doron and Yoav Paz have tried their best with Phobidilia. While the film, which was shown recently at the Berlin Film Festival,  features wonderful acting and some insights into modern life (and modern men), it’s a difficult film to sit through and leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.

Ofer Shechter won a well-deserved acting award at the Haifa Film Festival last fall for his performance as the anti-hero of the film, a young man who suffers from agoraphobia and never leaves his apartment. Things being what they are these days, all his needs are met there. He does some kind of work via the Internet, orders in food and kitty litter (he has a cat), and gets sexual satisfaction via the porn he watches on the computer. His television is on around the clock. He used to leave his building, although, the film suggests, not a lot. The twist is that he doesn’t see his condition as a problem to be overcome. He’s perfectly happy, until the day that the elderly man he calls Grumps (Shlomo Bar-Shavit), the agent for the apartment’s owner, tells him he must move out. This strikes fear into his heart and spurs him to action. He makes the apartment especially messy and acts strange when Grumps brings tenants to see it.

Around the same time, he gets a visit from Daniela (Efrat Baumwold), a young woman who is taking surveys for a media corporation. She befriends him, although the gloomy protagonist doesn’t seem particularly happy about her overtures, but in keeping with his passive-aggression, he doesn’t completely ignore them. Soon, she is proposing to him that they have sex, an offer he finds easy to refuse at first. After all, he has his dream girl on the Internet, who chats with him, undresses, and will go away at the click of a mouse (as long as his credit card is valid). Daniela’s sudden and intense interest seems a bit implausible. Her willingness to put up with his craziness and his sullen acceptance of her attention raised questions in my mind that I doubt the filmmakers intended about how much easier dating is for men (he doesn’t even have to leave his apartment to have a woman throwing herself at him, while she has no problem with a man who can’t even meet her in a coffee shop). The fantasy scenes in which she creates images for him of the two of them romping in flower-laden fields are banal and slow down the movie, which is only 87 minutes, but drags in several spots. The confrontation between Daniela and his Internet fantasy woman didn’t add much, and the parallels between the hero’s life and Grumps’ Holocaust experiences of Grumps (he spent the war years hiding out in a ditch) were similarly obvious.

What works in the movie, and some of it does work brilliantly, is the well-observed portrait of a man who has retreated from all challenges, into the safety of a media-saturated refuge where nothing is demanded of him. Don’t we all know people whose lives are going in that direction? And don’t most of us have a couch-potato side that wants to take refuge from the world? Part of what is creepy about the hero is the ways in which he just an exaggerated version of the rest of us. In Japan, the phenomenon of these (mostly) male, young shut-ins is called hikikomori, and it has been dramatized in numerous films, notably Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s contribution to the omnibus film, Tokyo! , in which a shut-in falls for a girl delivering pizzas when she takes shelter in his apartment during an earthquake.

Toward the end, as the main character looks back at his childhood and pinpoints what drove him inward, he becomes more sympathetic, but during much of the film, his bizarre behavior is obviously and purposefully off-putting. I wish the filmmakers had been able to create a few more surprises in this film. There are  moments of real wit here and others when I really felt for the hero and could see that he was suffering and not merely self-absorbed. Like Danny Lerner’s Frozen Days and Walls, Doron Paz and Yoav Paz create a self-contained world here, in the midst of Tel Aviv, but while it’s a place we may recognize, it’s not a place we’ll want to spend  much time. 

 

The Day After the Oscars: Ajami, Israel and awards

 

Published in the Jerusalem Post on March 9, 2010

        Just before the Academy Awards ceremony, a figure in the Israeli media said that he was concerned that, in light of statements by Scandar Copti, one of the co-directors of Ajami, the Israeli nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, that Copti was likely to get up on stage and make a speech that would be insulting to and embarrassing for Israel.

            “That should be our big problem,” I told him. “That an Israeli film wins an Oscar and the director says something embarrassing.”

Scene from the film, "Ajami"/TelAviv-Fever

            As it turns out, that wasn’t our big problem. Ajami did not win the Oscar, which instead went to El Secret de Sus Ojos, an Argentine film by Juan Jose Campanella. Israel has never won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, despite being nominated nine times (including three times in as many years).

            Every time Israel does not win this award, Israelis ask me the next day, “Why didn’t it win? Is it anti-Semitism?” And one day, when Israel does win (and it will eventually), the director (or directors) will get up and say something that will embarrass and annoy some Israelis. That’s an Oscar prediction I’ll bet money on.

            But what can we make of this year’s controversy, which marred the image of a unified Israel many here hoped that Ajami would promote, since it was co-directed by Copti, an Israeli-Arab Christian from Jaffa, and Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew from Haifa? Tensions have been brewing for the past month, since two of Copti’s brothers (among others) were arrested in Jaffa on what they say were unjust charges, then subjected to police brutality. The day before the Oscars, Jaffa residents held a demonstration to protest the police conduct, which received more publicity than any similar demonstration has in the recent past. But what got some Israelis particularly apprehensive were statements made by Scandar Copti while promoting the film before the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles, notably this one:  “You have an Israeli director and a Palestinian director; you have Israeli actors and Palestinian actors. The movie represents Israel, but I don’t; I can’t represent a country that doesn’t represent me.”

            Co-director Yaron Shani countered the statement by saying that Ajami “is an Israeli movie, it takes place in Israel, it speaks Israeli, it deals with problems in Israel.”

            That the film received a significant portion of its budget from the Israel Film Fund, a government fund, which has been promoting Ajami for months on its website and elsewhere, has never been in dispute.  Copti is certainly correct in saying that the movie represents Israel. And while he may feel it does not represent him, in fact, it does. It represents the messy reality of his life in a complicated country, where many groups are thrown together in a geographically small area. There are conflicts among all the groups, and within all the groups: Between Jews and Arabs, Muslim Arabs and Christian Arabs, Israeli Arabs and West Bank Palestinians, West Bank Palestinians and Bedouins – and among all these groups and representatives of the Israeli government (and other authorities, both formal and informal), including and often, the police. These conflicts are the subject of the film Ajami, made with money from a government that Copti doesn’t feel he represents. I can sympathize with his anger over the treatment of his family and friends, but he made a choice and it cannot be undone. It can’t be clean to take money from a government and dirty to acknowledge what that money has bought. The success of the film has brought a great deal of attention to the Ajami neighborhood. Audiences all over the world (including Oscar voters  and the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, which awarded Ajami a Special Mention last spring) have become aware of the neighborhood and its complex reality since the release of the film. I’m sure there have been many complaints of police brutality in the Ajami neighborhood over the years, but due to the film, this recent one became front-page news.  It’s hard not to see that as a victory of sorts.

            Copti may be missing an opportunity to criticize his own government from the perspective of a citizen who represents a minority here.  Whether he likes the way it feels or not, he has made his movie and through it, his voice be heard. When he speaks up, people do listen, as he has just learned, if he didn’t realize it before. And they listen because he is an Israeli and they care very much about what those who represent Israel have to say.

            We haven’t heard the last of either Copti or Shani, who are just beginning their careers. In terms of the Oscars, let’s hope for better luck next year. And, for the record, the winning Argentine film is excellent. Ajami’s loss certainly has nothing to do with anti-Semitism or anti-Israel sentiment. The voters simply preferred a different film. That’s show business.

The Ajami Controversy and the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race

 

                The Academy Awards ceremony begins in Los Angeles tonight and the question here is: Will the third time be a charm? Will Israel’s third Oscar nomination in as many years bring gold to the blue-and-white?

Scandar Copti (left) and Yaron Shani, the directors of Ajami/Courtesy of Tel Aviv-Fever

                Although this may be a cliché, Israel has already won by being there. The inclusion of Ajami, directed by Scandar Copti, an Israeli-Arab Christian from Jaffa, and Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew, is a triumph, both for the directors and for the entire Israeli film industry, especially in light of certain recent events. Although Copti was quoted in the aftermath of allegations of police brutality against members of his family in Jaffa as saying he doesn’t feel he is representing Israel, in fact, he is.  Ajami received a significant part of its budget from the Israel Film Fund, a government body that is given great leeway in deciding what to films to invest in. I can certainly understand Copti’s outrage against the police and the government and have felt similar anger when friends of mine were arrested (for working at an improperly licensed radio station for which I also worked) and treated poorly while they were held in jail.

        But Ajami is in no way an apologia for this government. Rather, it is a realistic and impassioned portrait of Jaffa’s Ajami neighborhood. It portrays the brutality and injustice that Copti is now reacting to and has moved a great many people, among them viewers around the world, the Oscar nominating committee, and juries at Cannes and many other film festival. It’s a complicated, messy fact that the Israeli-born Copti has grown up in Israel and took money from this government to fund this film. Ajami has taken the truth of the complicated, messy lives of Jaffa’s residents and brought it out into the light for the world to see. He made the right decision to accept government funding and film this deeply personal story (along with his co-director Yaron Shani, who worked with Copti to bring their joint vision to the screen). The contradictions and conflict that have plagued Copti’s family and friends are all up there on the screen, just where they should be. I think Copti is missing an opportunity to criticize his own government from the perspective of a citizen who represents a minority here, much as African Americans have criticized the US government. In any case, it can’t be clean to take money from a government and dirty to acknowledge what that money has bought.

      If you go back a few months ago, a group of prominent filmmakers asked the Toronto International Film Festival organizers to reconsider their decision to feature a week of films spotlighting Tel Aviv. Ajami was shown at Toronto this year, although in a different category, but it was clearly identified as an Israeli film. Yaron Shani told me that the Ajami screenings were sold out at Toronto. It’s inconceivable to me that Shani and Copti would have wanted Toronto audiences to boycott their film.

      When the organizers refused to back down and the week marking Tel Aviv’s centennial went on as planned, some filmmakers boycotted the festival. The arrogance and ignorance of the boycotters is a subject for another article.  But it is both ironic and laughable in light of the fact that the movies that sparked their indignation were critical of almost every aspect of Israeli society, including government policies, and, in almost all cases, received significant government funding. There have been rumblings about boycotts at other festivals, and some filmmakers, notably Ken Loach, have refused to attend film festivals in Israel. For the most part, though, the international filmmaking community has been remained very open to Israeli films, and this third Oscar nomination in a row –which follows nominations for Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort and Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, both films about the first Lebanon War – just underscores that fact.

                Copti and Shani are the toast of Hollywood, and are undoubtedly meeting some of the filmmakers who inspired them as they visit Los Angeles to attend the ceremony. If they choose, they can sign a contract with a Hollywood agent who will promote them in the US. As they prepared for their trip to the Oscars, along with their producers and eight of their actors, their publicist (when the film was shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival last summer, they didn’t even have one) said they were too busy for interviews. Their star, Shahir Kabaha, one of the many non-professional actors they used in the film, had to take a vacation from his job making bourekas at his father’s bakery in Jaffa to make trip to Los Angeles. But the two co-directors have launched what is likely to be long careers in the film industry.

                But will they actually come home with an Oscar? The truth is, the Best Foreign Language Film category is the hardest to pick and I say this as someone who has been predicting the Oscars for newspapers for over 14 years. It’s a category that has a very precise and unusual set of rules for nominating and voting. Every country is allowed to submit one movie to be considered for the five nominations. This film is  usually the movie that wins its local Oscar (in our case, the Ophir Award), although in some countries there is a committee that selects the nominee. Whereas once, few countries outside Europe and Japan submitted film, this year 65 countries submitted a film. Most of these movies have not yet opened in the US, and few ever will. The selection of the nominees is a long, involved process, involving committees on both coasts of America. The voting process is also unusual. Only voters who have seen all five nominees in theaters and can prove it (by means of a stamped card) are allowed to vote in this category. This rule is also in place in the short-film categories and for documentaries. It may sound odd, but it’s a sensible rule, because it insures that movies by the highest-profile filmmakers won’t automatically win. For example, voters might be tempted to pick a movie by Spanish director Pedro Almodovar because it might be the only film they had seen theatrically or even heard of in a given year.

But it also means that only Academy voters with the time and motivation to see all five nominees in a theater can vote. Now that might not seem to be asking a lot, but Academy members who are working will often be on the set from five in the morning till after midnight – not a lot of time to see five movies. Many voters in other categories see most of the nominees on DVD. Those who do vote in the Best Foreign Language Film category tend to be older and retired, and, critics say, more conservative. That might explain the fact that, often, the safest and most sentimental choices win, like last year’s unheralded film, Departures, from Japan, which beat Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, even though Waltz had won most of the critics’ awards and many film festival prizes. Waltz was an animated documentary about soldiers in the first Lebanon War, and was an unusual and demanding film.

    It’s a safe bet to assume that relatively few voters determine the outcome in this category. What no one knows is how few. I spoke this winter with a member of the Executive Nominating Committee in this category and asked whether it was possible that just 20 or so voters determined the outcome. She said it was possible and that it wouldn’t surprise her if the number wasn’t much higher than that.  

       So what competition does Ajami face? Conventional wisdom is that the film to beat is The White Ribbon, which won the Palme d’Or, the top prize, at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Michael Haneke, this German film is set in a small town before World War I, where a series of unexplained and brutal crimes takes place. The film, which is in black and white, is a critique of the repressive child-rearing philosophy of that era, which many have theorized helped create the breeding grounds for Nazism. But it’s a slow, dark and heavy film with barely a single likable character, not the sort of movie Academy Award voters tend to enjoy. The French nominee, Un Prophete, directed by Jacques Audiard, won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. It is a gritty story of young Muslims in a French prison, and I fear it will appeal to the same viewers who might vote for Ajami. Audiences confused by the complexities of Ajami (Americans often can’t even tell when characters are speaking Hebrew or Arabic, and titles were added for the US release indicating which language is being spoken) may respond better to the less complicated storyline of Un Prophete. The nominee from Peru, The Milk of Sorrow, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The only nominee directed by a woman, Claudia Llosa, it tells the story of a woman living with the aftermath of a rape, but it has not generated the same buzz as the other nominees. Although I wish with all my heart that Ajami comes home with the Oscar, I feel that the most likely winner is the fifth nominee, The Secret in their Eyes, an Argentine film. It’s a suspenseful drama about a mysterious killing that took place years before that involves political corruption, features a well-drawn, sympathetic hero, and even has a bit of romance. Its director, Juan Jose Campanella, was nominated for an Oscar several years ago for Son of the Bride and Argentina has had its own cinematic renaissance in recent years. Few realize that Campanella has spent the last few years in Hollywood, directing episodes of such shows as Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and has undoubtedly made a few friends there, which may come in handy when small numbers of voters determine the outcome of the award.

    But whatever film wins the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar on Sunday night, I hope that people will be dancing in the streets in Jaffa, and all over Israel. Once again, we have won much by being there.

 

 

 

 

Hannah Brown’s Oscar Picks for 2010

It’s Oscar time and for the third time in a row, Israel has a film among the nominees. Ajami co-directors Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti will be sitting in the auditorium, and many here in Israel will be waiting anxiously to see if Israel gets its first Oscar. But whether or not they go home with a gold statuette (more on that later), it’s a triumph that they were nominated for their first film, in a highly competitive category. Their nomination is especially sweet in a year in which prominent filmmakers called – unsuccessfully — for a boycott of Israeli films at the Toronto Film Festival.

It’s also an interesting year for many other reasons. For one, this is the first time since 1943 that there have been 10 Best Picture nominees rather than five. Now, everything but the kitchen sink has been nominated. For information on the complex new voting system, go to www.awardsdaily.com  , the all-Oscar-all-the-time Website that features links to many predict-the-awards contests.

And now, without further ado, my predictions for the awards:

BEST PICTURE  The consensus is that the real contest is between two very different films, the special-effects epic Avatar and The Hurt Locker, a tough film about the war in Iraq. They were directed by James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow, respectively, who just happen to have once been married. Bigelow is only the fourth woman nominated for Best Director, and if she wins, she’ll be the first woman to win.

The spoiler in this category could be Inglourious Basterds.

Winner: The Hurt Locker.

BEST DIRECTOR

Winner: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

BEST ACTOR: This award will be a very, very deserved lifetime achievement award for Jeff Bridges, who plays an aging country music singer in Crazy Heart.

Winner: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart

BEST ACTRESS: This is the hardest category to call. Meryl Streep, the most nominated actress in Oscar history, is probably not going to win for her sublime performance in Julie and Julia. This will be the year for Sandra Bullock, a very well- liked actress.

Winner: Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: No one has a chance here but Christoph Waltz, who played the charming Nazi in Inglourious Basterds.

Winner: Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: This is another category dominated by a single performance, the comedian in Mo’Nque in the very unsympathetic role of the mother in Precious. I would love to see Anna Kendrick win for Up in the Air, this brilliant, fast-talking actress is the next Holly Hunter. But Kendrick will have other chances.

Winner: Mo’Nique for Precious

BEST SCREENPLAY AWARDS:

Winner, Best Adapted Screenplay: Up in the Air

Winner, Best Original Screenplay: The Hurt Locker

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: This will be the most-watched category here, of course. Only voters who can prove they have seen all five nominated films at screenings (not on DVDs) by means of a stamped card can vote for this award. What this means, though, is that only Oscar voters with time to attend five screenings vote (conventional wisdom says that these voters tend to be semi-retired, older and more conservative). It also means that, theoretically, five or 10 people could be the only ones voting.

Ajami is a great achievement for first-time directors Copti and Shani, but French director Jacques Audiard’s Un Prophete covers similar ground (it’s a gritty prison drama about young Muslims, while Ajami is a gritty crime drama mostly about young Muslims). The Milk of Sorrow, the Peruvian nominee, is a kind of Latin-American Precious, and it is arguably the weakest of all the nominees. Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, which took the top prize at Cannes, is considered the frontrunner. But The White Ribbon is a slow, pretentious, black-and-white, relentlessly downbeat film about how repression and child abuse in pre-World War I Germany led to Nazism. Oscar voters traditionally don’t warm to this type of film, to put it mildly. So I’m going to go with the far more lively and accessible El Secret de Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) from Argentine director Juan Jose Campanella.

Winner: El Secret de Sus Ojos.

I will be as happy as anyone if that last prediction is wrong and the winner turns out to be Ajami, but with Oscar, there’s always next year.

Israeli film, “Ajami,” gets Oscar nod

Jerusalem Post Feb 3 2010

The Israeli film, Ajami, was selected as one of the five nominees for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar yesterday. The Oscar nominees in all categories were announced in a press conference in Los Angeles.

 This is the third year in a row that Israel received an Oscar nomination in this category and Israel’s ninth nomination. No Israeli film has ever won the Best Foreign Film Oscar.

    Ajami, a drama about crime in Jaffa, was directed by Scandar Copti, an Israeli-Arab Christian, and Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew. Its cast and crew headed to a restaurant in Jaffa to celebrate the nomination. While it’s anyone’s guess whether Ajami will be Israel’s first Oscar-winning feature, the fact that it received a nomination at all is a triumph for its young directors, both first-time filmmakers. They spent seven years making the film, which features a cast of almost all non-professionals, mainly from Jaffa. Its complex narrative involves the conflicts and alliances among Israeli Arabs and Jews, Arab Christians and Muslims, as well as West Bank Palestinians and Bedouins. Just after Ajami won the Ophir Award (the Israeli Oscar) last September, which made it Israel’s official entry for the Oscars, Copti told The Jerusalem Post, “We’re still on a hysterical adrenaline rush from it all. This is more than I dreamed of in my wildest dreams.” It’s also a triumph for Israel in a year in which prominent film industry figures called for a boycott of a program of Israeli films at the Toronto film festival last fall. Ajami is a partnership between directors, producers and actors of different religions and points to the openness of Israeli society. It received some of its funding from the Israel Film Fund, a government-supported fund.

 

    The other nominees in this category are El Secreto do Sus Ojos (Argentina),
Un Prophete (France), The White Ribbon (Germany) and
The Milk of Sorrow (Peru). Sixty-five countries submitted films for consideration for a nomination in this category. Each country can submit a single film.

 

          Ajami, which won a prize for Special Distinction in the Camera d’Or competition for first-time filmmakers at Cannes, faces stiff competition.  The White Ribbon, directed by Michael Haneke, won the Palme d’Or, the top prize in the main competition at Cannes, while Jacques Audiard’s The Prophet, a prison drama, won the Grand Prix there.  The Milk of Sorrow, directed by Claudia Llosa, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival last year.  

          Israel’s previous two nominees in recent years were both about the first Lebanon War, Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, and Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort. Some expected Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival last year, to be Israel’s Ophir Award winner and Oscar contender, this year. Others questioned the wisdom of sending a third film about the Lebanon War to the Oscars. Israel’s six other nominees, during the years from 1964-1985, were Sallah, The Policeman, The House on Chelouche Street, I Love You Rosa, Operation Thunderbolt and Beyond the Walls.

 

     In other categories, this is the first year since 1943 that there have been 10 nominations in the Best Picture category and they went to: Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, Up in the Air, Up, and A Serious Man.

    In the best director category, former spouses James Cameron (Avatar, a science-fiction extravaganza) and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, a drama about the war in Iraq), will be facing off against each other. If Bigelow wins, she will be the first woman ever to win the Best Director Oscar. The Hurt Locker will have its Israeli premiere on the YES television network on March 7. The other nominated directors are Jason Reitman (Up In the Air), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), and Lee Daniels (Precious).

    In the Best Actor category, the nominees are George Clooney for his performance as an alienated corporate traveler in Up in the Air; Jeff Bridges as a broken-down musician in Crazy Heart; Jeremy Renner as a confused soldier in Iraq in The Hurt Locker;     

 Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in Invictus; and Colin Firth as an English professor in A Single Man.

          The Best Actress nominees are Sandra Bullock as a woman who becomes a foster mother to a black football player in The Blind Side; Carey Mulligan as a high-school girl seduced by an older man in An Education; Meryl Streep as Julia Child in Julie & Julia; Gabby Sidibe as an abused teen in Precious; and Helen Mirren as Tolstoy’s wife in The Last Station.

 

            The Oscar winners will be announced at a ceremony on March 7 in Los Angeles. 

 

 

 

 

TAMP: Tel Aviv’s Miserable People or What’s Wrong with Israeli Movies

THINGS BEHIND THE SUN

 

Two stars

 

Directed and written by Yuval Shafferman. Hebrew title: Ha Devarim Sheh M’ahorei Ha Shemesh. 100 minutes. In Hebrew.

 

With Assi Dayan, Sandra Sade, Tali Sharon, Tes Hashiloni, Zohar Strauss, Hila Vidor, Rozina Kambus

 

When you go to a horror film, you know what to expect: weird creatures, scary music, gory deaths. With an action film, you’ll see car chases, the hero running and leaping to avoid pursuit, and a villain scheming against him. It’s the same with all genre films: There are certain conventions that are utterly predictable. So it is with a certain kind of Israeli film, a genre I will dub TAMP, for Tel Aviv’s Miserable People. Yuval Shafferman’s just released “Things Behind the Sun” is a textbook example of the TAMP genre and anyone who sees it must be prepared to endure all its hallmarks. The following are a few rules that apply equally to “Things Behind the Sun,” as well as a truckload of other TAMP films, including such classics of the genre as “Life According to Agfa,” “Shuroo,” and “Joy”:

One: It is slow and boring. Long pauses are the rule, as are repetitive scenes, very often set indoors in a cramped apartment.

Two: It does not focus on a single figure but on a host of unpleasant characters, often a family, who constantly fight with each other. In “Things,” which is about the Grossman family, a vague and ineffectual father, Itzhak (Assi Dayan, who won the Ophir Best Actor Award for his performance here), is at odds with his wife, Smadar (Sandra Sade), a painter about to have her first gallery show, which consists entirely of paintings of her family and herself nude, done without their knowledge or permission. Both of them either spar frequently with or ignore their depressed, in-the-closet lesbian daughter Na’ama (Tali Sharon); their pot-smoking 27-year-old son, Amit (Zohar Strauss), who still lives at home,  nursing various resentments; and their chubby 10-year-old daughter, Didush (Tes Hashiloni), who sits around, watching reality TV, arranging her coins featuring pictures of celebrities and and cutting school. The plot, such as it is, is about how the family reacts when Itzhak’s father, with whom he has not been in contact for 10 years, is hospitalized in critical condition.