Dancing in Jaffa

Dancing in Jaffa, directed by Hilla Medalia, was this year's film that opened the DocAviv Film festival in Tel Aviv.  It is a full-length (87 minutes) documentary film about breaking barriers between Jewish and Palestinian youngsters in Jaffa.  

The following is a guest posting by my daughter, Sari Kronish, who has previously posted reviews on this blog --

Pierre Dulaine was born in Jaffa in 1944 and was four-years-old in 1948, when his family - Palestinian mother and Irish father - was displaced. He grew up in the United States and became a ballroom dancer and teacher. As he says very early on in the film: his dream was to come back to his hometown one day and impart some of his life lessons to the children of Jaffa. The documentary film Dancing in Jaffa tells the story of how he fulfilled this dream. 

Pierre decided to bring his successful New York City based project Dancing Classrooms to Jaffa. The project is not simply about teaching ballroom dancing. Rather, dance is a tool for getting the children to break down social barriers, learn about honor and respect, treat others carefully, improve self-confidence, communicate and cooperate, and accept others even if they are different. 

Four Jaffa schools are chosen to partake in the project: two Jewish-Israeli schools and two Palestinian-Israeli schools, though it becomes clear that at least two of the schools are partially mixed. Pierre confesses that he has a special kinship to the Palestinian children, not only because of his personal background but also because he wants to grant them the opportunity for a better life. The film includes a close glimpse into the lives of three pupils: two Palestinians, a boy and a girl, and one Jewish girl. The Palestinian boy is the son of a fisherman whose mother is a refugee from Gaza. The film even follows the boy on one of his trips with his mother to visit her family in Gaza. The Palestinian girl is introverted and mourning the death of her father. She slowly comes out of her shell during the film. The Jewish girl is also growing up without a father. Her mother is pushing her to win the contest and she's the one to explain that the project is not about winning the contest. 

The film is filled with many touching, even humorous and slightly awkward moments. Pierre is a quirky, somewhat old-fashioned, well-intentioned character, who speaks simple Arabic and picks up a few Hebrew words as the project progresses. 

Watching the film is a real treat, filled with beautifully shot scenes of life in Jaffa and a unique window into a life-changing experience, crossing gender, religious and national barriers. 

Dancing in Jaffa is available from Go2Films.

Bananot (Cupcakes)

I missed Eytan Fox's latest feature film when it played in the movie theaters in Jerusalem, but I had an opportunity to see it this week.  Bananot (Cupcakes) is an extremely witty musical about romance and about living your dreams.

It is highly enjoyable, charming, a real romp!  Not at all a serious drama -- just a good evening's entertainment!  The acting is stupendous; the script is fast and witty; the characters are charming; the pacing is perfect.  

   

It is about a bunch of friends who get together every year to watch the Eurovision song contest.  They are a witty and charming group, all professional people.  The man is a sometimes over-the-top gay nursery school teacher who has been having a secret love affair for a long time with a handsome media figure who is afraid of ruining his heterosexual image.  The diverse group of women include: a personal assistant for a minister in the government, a well-known singer, an on-line journalist/columnist, a lawyer, and a woman who owns her own bakery.

 

The film reminded me in some ways of Fox's short musical comedy,  Gotta Have Heart (1997), which, filled with Eurovision songs, was a musical fantasy about hunting for the person of your dreams.  

Also in Bananot, Fox is confronting the issue of gay love affairs which remain stuffed in the closet due to societal pressures versus the desire to commit to each other openly and proudly and publicly.   In addition, the film is about living life for your own self and not for other's expectations of you!

Eytan Fox's other films -- Song of the Siren, Walk on Water, Yossi and Jagger, The Bubble and Yossi -- have been previously written about on this blog. 

Upcoming Speaking Tour to North America

My last speaking tour to North America was in late February and early March and I enjoyed myself tremendously!  My upcoming speaking tour will be during the fall of 2013 and I am offering the following film discussion programs (each program lasts 1 1/2 to 2 hours and includes the screening and analysis of film clips).  Please contact me directly if you would like to invite me to come to your community. 

• Lens on Israel:  Contemporary Issues in Israeli Society. Take a look at the issues and developments of contemporary Israel during the last 10-15 years, as we move from the self-sacrificing ideology of the communal endeavor to the new post-modern emphasis on the individual.  The program includes living with loss, changing ties to the land, relations with Arabs, issues of gender, and the gap between religious and secular. 
• Changing Attitudes Towards War and Peace. Issues such as purity of arms, changing attitudes towards military service, and how Israeli filmmakers have portrayed war – ranging from the realistic to the surreal.
• Understanding the Other – Palestinian and Jewish Perspectives.  A look at the controversial issues and trends in contemporary filmmaking -- using both Palestinian and Jewish voices.  Includes the complex issues of victimization and conflicting memories.
• -Gender Issues in Israeli Cinema. The emerging image of the woman in Israeli cinema, dealing with the earlier mythic/heroic images, the humiliation of the Sephardi male, and offering a look at the new vulnerability and fading chauvanism of the Israeli male.
• Issues of Memory – The Holocaust and Israeli Society. The changing perceptions of the Holocaust and the Holocaust survivor as seen in screen portrayals, including a look at the Holocaust fatigue and black humor of the third generation in Israel.
• Adolescents in Israel:  Are They Really Different?  The pressures of youth and the difficulties of growing up in a society under siege, as seen against the background of adolescent unease worldwide.
• The Women of Israel. In recent years, we have been seeing more complex narrative films about women and women's issues, portraying unique stories and issues that are central to the lives of contemporary Israeli women – both Jewish and Palestinian.
• Assimilation, Modernity and Jewish Identity on the Screen. Engage in a careful analysis of a number of American film classics as we consider, among other subjects, brit milah, intermarriage, Jewish food and the negative stereotype of the Jewish mother. What are some of the unique tensions revealed when there is a clash between the need to remain connected to one's roots and traditions and the overwhelming desire to assimilate?

Zaytoun by Eran Riklis

Filmmaker Eran Riklis is well-known for his hard-hitting and oftentimes brilliant films about Arab-Israeli relations, and more broadly about the conflict.  His previous films, which have been written about widely on this blog (Cup Final, Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree, Human Resources Manager) also have a sharp element of political irony.  

His latest film, Zaytoun (2012), opens in Beirut, a city destroyed by civil war.  It is the spring of 1982.

Fahed is a Palestinian kid who enjoys life, playing soccer and cutting school.  He lives in the Shatilla refugee camp, outside of Beirut and participates in a para-military program for Palestinian adolescents to prepare them to retake Palestine.  Suddenly, in the opening  sequence of the film,  his whole world is changed when his father is killed by a bomb from an Israeli plane.  His father has left him three things -- a love of their land, the key to their home in Palestine, and a small olive tree that his father grabbed and took with him when they had to flee their village so many years ago. (This explains the title of the film, Zaytoun, which means "olives.")

When an Israeli jet is shot down,  the pilot is captured by the para-military group and Fahed is one of the youngsters given the task of watching the prisoner.  An uneasy deal is struck between the pilot, who realizes that he must escape and make his way back home, and Fahed, who, in return for helping him to escape, gets the opportunity to go to Palestine.  Thus begins an improbable road movie as the two set off together, traveling south, to the Israeli border.  

This film is about the tentative relationship that slowly develops between the two -- a hardened  fighter pilot, running for his life, and a wily Palestinian 12-year-old, bent on finding his family's ancestral village. 

The film is similar to Riklis' Cup Final, which is also a road movie, taking place against the background of the beginning of the 1982 War in Lebanon.  However, in a much more fundamental way, this film is also similar to Riklis', Lemon Tree -- both films are based on the premise that not only the Jews, but also the Palestinians have deep roots in this land.

Mixing the Personal and the National

Israel: A Home Movie (Eliav Lilti and Arik Bernstein)כך ראינו  is a stirring documentary that uses home movie footage collected from attics and storage spaces. The filmmakers have created a mosaic that is the history of Israel from the 1920s until the end of the 1970s, a mosaic that combines the personal and the national.  The family scenes and scenes of everyday life are interspersed with footage of national events and footage of people on the move -- survivors arriving, evacuating children during the War of Independence, Arab refugees during the period of the establishment of the State, and new immigrants arriving from Yemen. 

Not only is the footage unique and rare, but the soundtrack is not your typical narration.  It is made-up of people telling their stories, commenting as their footage is shown -- here is my father, here you can see me 50 years ago, this is my uncle going off to war -- singing songs and relating personal memories, commenting about those days filled with nostalgia, about people who are no longer with us, and asking how things might have been different. 

I found the section of the film during the period prior to and following the Six Day War to be the most compelling.  We see Divided Jerusalem and shots of the Old City before the city is reunited.  Following the war, a special event is documented when eight couples get married at the Cave of the Machpelah.   We see Udi Dayan filming photos of his iconic father which he found all over the Arab market after the War. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a tremendous amount of footage of wars -- tanks, downing of planes, battlefields, military parades and the not-so-humane treatment of POWs.  The film concludes with the victory of the Likud in 1977 and the visit of Anwar Sadat. 

It seems to be a common downfall of documentary filmmakers that they are unable to part with their footage!  Perhaps this film is also a bit too long (100 minutes)!  I would recommend watching it in two sittings!

Israel: A Home Movie (100 minutes, 2012, documentary) is available from Go2Films

Personal Documentary Filmmaking

My favorite documentary genre is "personal documentary" and Photonovela by Chen Shelach stands up to my expectations!  This is no dry documentary -- it is a personal story filled with skeletons in the closet.

Chen Shelach grew up on Kibbutz Mizrah and this is a compelling personal documentary about the story of his family. 

Shelach's  12-year-old daughter, Shir, is doing a family roots project for school, but she's more interested in "telenovelas" (hebrew for soap operas).  Little does she know that her father is hiding his own story from her and that a soap opera could be produced based on the story of his family.  

When he approaches his mother to talk about the story, she tells him, "The best is to live in the present."  She came as a Holocaust refugee to the kibbutz where she has lived her entire life.  Here everything is like a pressure cooker -- everyone knows everyone's business.    No wonder she prefers to dwell in the present.

The film asks the question -- is it better to tell children everything or to protect them by keeping secrets from them? 

 

Shelach's family seems to be a normal family - he and his wife and their 3 children -- living on the kibbutz.  Slowly the dramatic story unfolds.  This is the stuff that soaps are made of.  While researching her family's past, Shir learns about the kibbutz, the Holocaust, romance, and scandal -- up close and personal!

Photonovela (documentary, 52 minutes, 2013) is available from Go2Films.