"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

Wednesday, June 7, 2023

A Film about Messed Up Relationships

 Let the Party Begin (כולם מחכים רק לי), directed by Aki Avni, who is well-known as an actor in the Israeli film world.  This is his directorial debut. 

This is a dark film about the dog-eat-dog world of the Israeli film industry, how everyone is screwing and taking advantage of everyone else.  What is your business partner doing behind your back?  And who is coming on to your wife?  These are the worrisome things going on. And there is plenty of snorting of cocaine, sexual innuendo, and foul language. 



The story is about a workaholic film producer who just returned from winning the big prize at the Cannes Film Festival.  You would think that he would be on top of the world.  But he is heavily in debt and doesn’t know how he will pull himself out of it.  Clueless about his financial troubles, his new wife has planned a big surprise party to honor him for this big prize, but he’s worried about his debts, and he decides to bug the house with microphones and cameras, so that he can be a fly-on-the-wall at his own party.  Most of the evening, he spends sitting in his car in a dark garage, watching the various cameras, and listening to the conversations of all of his “best” friends. 

The film was quite unique in its format and style but it was disappointing in other areas – the script is lightweight, without real depth, and even though there are a wide array of party-goers – producers, actors, scriptwriters, critics -- we get to know many of them, but we don’t like any of them!   And that’s the hard part for me.  I like films that have characters you can empathize with or laugh when they laugh or cry when they cry.  But you won’t find anything like that in this film.  And the entire film is shot with a gray filter because you are supposedly watching the output from the cameras that have been placed around the party.  So, overall, not my cup of tea.

Let the Party Begin is a film about a man who has messed up his life and can only look at his (terrible) relationships through the camera. 

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