Heart of Gold לב זהב , directed by Efrat Corem, is a new Israeli feature film which premiered at this week’s Jerusalem Film Festival.
Mali, is single in her 30s, living alone, working as a
ticket inspector on buses in Ashkelon. She is a quirky character, and extremely
charming and compelling. She is a survivor of her own past which has left her particularly vulnerable and we see the scars of that past erupt in her own violence against a couple of disrespectful teens on her bus. Her brother, Shimon, whom
she loves dearly, works for the prisons and she is troubled by his having left
his wife and kids. She has a lover, an
older man who lives in her apartment building, obviously a bit of a father
figure. One day, Mali finds an abandoned baby on one of the buses, and she
takes him home. As she is growing more
and more attached to the little baby, her brother and her lover are both trying
to convince her to bring him to the police.
When her mother appears on the scene, we realize that this is a story about Mali’s own abandonment by her father, whom she never knew, and by her mother, who left Mali and her brother to make it on their own, about 15 years ago. How can Mali even consider abandoning this child?
Heart of Gold is a wonderful story about a strong,
struggling woman, the difficulties and issues in her past and present, and her
quirkiness and uniqueness as an adult. This
is a complex film about abandonment, loneliness, working class poverty and
family issues in Israeli society. Highly
recommended!
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