"World Cinema: Israel"

My book, "World Cinema: Israel" (originally published in 1996) is available from Amazon on "Kindle", with an in-depth chapter comparing and analyzing internationally acclaimed Israeli films up to 2010.

Want to see some of the best films of recent years? Just scroll down to "best films" to find listings of my recommendations.

amykronish@gmail.com

Thursday, September 14, 2017

A Family Drama

Antenna by Arik Rothstein is a compelling family drama which mixes comedy, family relations, and tragedy.  All mixed in one. 

Combining issues dealing with Holocaust memory, divorce, family loyalty, relations with the neighbors, illness, and intermarriage, the film tells the story of one typical Jewish Israeli family -- elderly parents and their three grown sons. 

The parents live in a two-family house, and the father discovers that his neighbor has rented out his part of the roof to a cellphone company for the installation of an antenna.  Believing that the radiation from the antenna is the cause of all of his aches and pains, the father develops an obsession with the antenna and begins to wage a war against his neighbor. 

His three sons and their partners – all portrayed in a complex manner and all very different from each other -- become involved in the struggle against the antenna -- Itzik, a career army officer, is married with three kids; Leon, divorced, teaches Holocaust literature at the university; and Effi, involved with a non-Jewish woman from Germany, is dealing and smoking grass.

The subject of the antenna might make you think that this film borders on the absurd.  Rather, it is a serious and authentic story about a family and the cellular antenna represents more than just a neighbor’s greed – the father is a Holocaust survivor and we begin to see that his paranoia is due to shadows from his past.

Contact Transfax Films for distribution information.

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