Festival features many Israeli films

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

The Vancouver International Film Festival runs Sept. 29 to Oct. 14 and, as in past years, it features several films from Israel, as well as movies with Jewish content.

The first movie previewed by the Independent was Policeman (Israel), which is divided into two parts that, at first, seem completely unrelated. The first half of the movie focuses on Yaron, who is part of an Israeli anti-terrorist unit, and his relationship with his fellow officers, as well as his pregnant wife. He is a caring husband and an all-round good guy, it seems, but when he and his group are together, they can be aggressive, sexist and racist; his eye also wonders a little, but with the excuse that his wife’s difficult pregnancy doesn’t permit them to have sex.

Just as viewers are getting to know Yaron and his colleagues/friends – and more about the fact that they are under investigation for a mission that went awry – the film abruptly changes focus to a group of young Jewish revolutionaries who are planning a terrorist act. They are a whiny, nasty lot who don’t evoke much sympathy, though their cause – social and economic inequality – has merit. When they crash a billionaire’s daughter’s wedding and take hostages, so they can air their grievances, Yaron and his squad are brought in to resolve the situation.

While an interesting premise and a well-acted film, with the plethora of cop shows in North America, in which all of this action (or more) takes place in under an hour, many viewers will find the pacing slow. However, the message is particularly relevant, as Israelis have been taking to the streets in droves this year to bring attention to internal socioeconomic issues.

Policeman director Nadav Lapid will be at the film festival, as will Alex Ross Perry, director, co-star and co-writer of The Color Wheel (United States), which is a unique take on the road-trip genre.

In The Color Wheel, Ross Perry plays the non-ambitious Colin, who, for reasons unclear even to him, is helping his estranged sister J.R. (played by co-writer Carlen Altman) pack up her belongings from the apartment that she has been sharing with her journalism professor and lover. J.R., who dreams of being a newscaster or a weather girl, is as full of optimism as she is bereft of talent, and the contrast of her outlook with that of Colin – exhibited by the siblings’ differing reactions to the events and quirky people they encounter on their trip – provides much of the comedy in what is a funny film, with many social commentary-filled one-liners and observations. While somewhat dark, and not just because it’s filmed in black and white, The Color Wheel is very entertaining until the final few minutes, when Ross Perry and Altman – mistakenly, in this reviewer’s opinion – spell out the disturbing undercurrent that has been bubbling close to the surface throughout the story.

The final movie that the Independent previewed is Man Without a Cellphone (Palestine/Israel/France/Belgium, directed by Sameh Zoabi). Everything is out in the open in this comedy-drama that centres around a cellphone tower built in an Arab Israeli town. Using humor for the most part, the film confronts many issues: the struggle between father and son, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, city versus rural life, gender issues, progress versus tradition, and more. While overtly political and critical, there are several amusing moments between father and son, as well as in the efforts of the son, Jawdat, to get into university and keep a girlfriend; his cousin sidekick also offers some levity. Overall, if viewers passionate about Israel are able to take an emotional step back from the reality of the situation, they might enjoy this film.

Other festival offerings

Footnote (Israel) is directed by Joseph Cedar, an Academy Award nominee for Beaufort. It is described as an “up-and-down tale of two talmudic scholars at odds with one another, on both a professional and personal level. That they are father and son adds a certain frisson to the plangent goings-on.” The father “has been toiling for decades, trying to collate and correct the extant not-necessarily-accurate texts of the Talmud in order to produce a definitive version.” His son, however, is “a generalist who produces popular books on less-arcane talmudic pursuits.”

Restoration (Israel, directed by Joseph Madmony) is also a father-son tale. After the death of his business partner, furniture restorer Yaakov Fidelman, 70, finds himself in a financial mess. His son, Noah, wants to sell the shop, and then Yaakov’s “new apprentice ... who just happens to be falling in love with Noah’s pregnant wife – finds an 1882 Steinway piano hidden under years of detritus at the back of the shop.”

Papirosen (Argentina), directed by Gaston Solnicki, is a different kind of family affair, featuring Solnicki’s immediate family in a mix of “archival footage and 10 years of the present” in “an observational document (of a family, their conflicts, arguments and crises), a critique (of class, in particular, the Jewish nouveau riche of post-WWII Argentina) and a celebration (of love, family bonds and the need to bear witness).”

Paul Goodman Changed My Life (United States) is sponsored by the Jewish Independent. Jonathan Lee’s documentary delves into the life of social critic-poet-philosopher Paul Goodman. “A prolific writer and self-described ‘man of letters’ ... Goodman emerged as a key 1960s counterculture figure with the publication of Growing Up Absurd.”

Crime After Crime (United States) is also a documentary. Directed by Yoav Potash, it “chronicles the travails of Deborah Peagler, an abused woman rightly convicted of killing her husband, but unfairly sentenced to life in prison.”

Finally, there are a couple of short films from Israel in this year’s festival:

Lose This Child (Israel) is a stop-motion animated music video for the Israeli band Eatliz, which was directed by Yuval Natha. It tells the story of “a newly hatched sea turtle navigates a terrifying journey to the ocean to find his mother.”

Tasnim, directed by Elite Zexer, is about a “10-year-old Bedouin girl [who] doesn’t respect her mother’s subservience in a male-dominated culture and [who] idolizes her delinquent father, though his behavior may prove him unworthy.”

For more information on all of the films in this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival, visit viff.org or call 604-683-FILM (3456).

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