AICE Israeli Film Festival 2009
Dates:
Melbourne: Tuesday 25 – Sunday 30 August
Palace Cinema Como and Brighton Bay
Sydney: Tuesday 1 – Sunday 6 September
Academy Twin, Paddington20 August 2009
Website: www.aicec.org
Coming of age
It would seem the film industry in Israel is very much alive and well by the entries in this year’s AICE Israeli Film Festival. With an interesting batch of varied titles to whet the appetite, there’s an emphasis on family and coming of age, often with the threat of terrorism lurking in the background. The festival provides evidence of technical excellence, strong performances and imaginative scripts. Here’s a sample of what’s on offer.
7 Minutes in Heaven
The unsettling debut feature by director Omri Givon is intriguing and haunting. Galia (Raymonde Amsallem) is a young woman badly burned in a terrorist attack on a Jerusalem bus which seriously injures her boyfriend Oren (Nadav Netz) who remains comatose and finally dies. Her memory of the bombing is confused - as she says “I don’t remember much of that day, all I have are fragments of time.” So the story is told in a fragmented way, the present mixes with glimpsed memories and perhaps the supernatural in clever transitions.
Galia has a compulsion to find out exactly what happened, and in her search for answers she’s told she was clinically dead for seven minutes. Meeting compassionate young man Boaz (Eldad Fribas) Galia slowly develops affection for him. She learns he was the paramedic who rescued her from the explosion. At the same time Galia starts seeing dead people, and her world becomes delusional - or is it? The climatic ending takes an unexpected twist. Givon tries some inventive devices effectively, as when Galia revisits the bus wreck where the bombing took place. Past and present intermix in a stylish editing job with vivid images and sound. The full horror of the bombing on the bus is brought home with considerable impact.
This director is no slouch, and masters the tricky technical bits with considerable skill: the ominous fancy dress party also something of a tour de force. Credit to the sound design for bringing a sense of foreboding from the first scene, with the noise of a respirator dominating the track for three minutes until a clock alarm breaks the spell.
As Galia, the dark, sultry Raymonde Amsallem with the sad expressive eyes confidently controls her performance down to her delightful tentative kiss with Eldad Fribras and her enigmatic gaze into the mirror at the finale. Dialogue’s limited for a feature but to advantage, much of the story effectively told in images and sound, especially the first reel. What remains with you are the eerie moments, the ghostly group at the traffic lights standing frozen as Galia walks off on the green signal. The pace is steady as you go in this offbeat romance with enough shock moments to keep you on edge.
Lost Islands
Selected to open the festival is this saga of a family in crisis. Set in the 80's, Erez (Michael Moshonov) and Ofer (Oshri Cohen) are twin brothers who fall in love with the same vivacious redhead Neta (Yuval Scharf). Erez discovers their beloved father Avraham (Shmil Ben Ari) has been having an affair with his secretary at work, which shocks him to the point of carrying out a foolish act of revenge which has far-reaching consequences. Finally, guilt-ridden, Erez joins an elite army unit, leaving Ofer who has always dreamt of an army career at home to take care of their invalid father. Ofer marries Neta, the one big love in Erez’s life; while in the wings Death is waiting. How the shrewd Avraham finally pulls the now-dysfunctional family together and regains their loyalty is the crux of the compelling story.
The
moral of the film could be summed up in the father’s words, “A
second can change your whole life”--- “A person with no dreams
is better off dead”. The intelligent autobiographical script with
taut direction by Reshef Levy holds your interest. Worth mentioning too
is the local connection after which the Israeli film is named. Early in
the halcyon days of innocence, the family sit around their TV watching
- of all things - the 1976 Australian series “The Lost Islands”.
Willie Fennell comes up on the credit list for that show; truly a blast
from the past.
Lost Islands, having been compared with American Graffiti, became the big hit at the box office in Israel last year. The performances of the leads are strong, especially Shmil Ben Ari (Three Mothers) capturing the suppressed emotions in Avraham. Hard not to keep an eye on Yuval Scharf, a real scenery eater. This joyful bundle of sensuous energy with a winning smile makes the most of her steamy love scene. Lost Islands gained four Isreali Academy Awards in 2008.
Other films to be shown during the festival include Shmuel Beru’s Zrubavel a drama by Ethiopian-Israeli filmmakers telling the poignant story of a multi-generational family of new immigrants, with the younger generation trying to assimilate into the Israeli culture. Eli & Ben directed by Ori Ravid is about a successful town planner enjoying a happy lifestyle which is suddenly shattered. After refusing to give planning permission for an ugly shopping complex he finds himself charged with corruption and accepting bribes.
Seven Days opened the Critics’ Week at Cannes. Set against the backdrop of the 1991 Gulf War, a Moroccan family mourn the death of a brother and revisit suppressed tensions. Two documentaries are included: Chronicle of a Kidnap relates the efforts of Karnit Goldwasser to find and bring home her husband, one of the two Israeli solders kidnapped by Hezbollah in July 2006. Their plight caused international debate, and Karnit heads up the lobbying at home and abroad. On a lighter note the other frank, outrageous but amusing documentary Yiddishe Mama follows a mother whose son wishes to marry the woman of his dreams, but more likely to be the daughter-in-law of mum's nightmares. The Israeli Film Festival commences in Melbourne on August 25th, and in Sydney on September 1st.
John Bale
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