Israeli films starring the city of Jerusalem

Yom Yerushalayim is approaching.  It is the day that the government has chosen to celebrate the unification of Jerusalem in 1967.  For me, it is much more a day to consider the issues and challenges of coexistence in this city.  In honor of this day, I am sharing an annotated listing of films dealing with Jerusalem! 

A few years ago, a film fund was established in Jerusalem.  As a result, there have been a large number of high quality feature films in which the city of Jerusalem plays an important role.  I recommend the following feature films, all of which have been reviewed on this blog --

• Footnote by Joseph Cedar -- a film which portrays life in Jerusalem, from the streets and sites of the city, to cultural events and mostly academic life and political back-biting at the Hebrew University.
• Hill Start by Oren Stern -- a quirky comedy on the subject of the family.
• Sweets by Joseph Pitchhadze -- a satire on the spiraling violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
• Hunting Elephants by Reshef Levy -- a comedy about a bank heist which includes a lot of nostalgia and melodrama.
• Wonders by Avi Nesher -- a thriller about a rabbi who works wonders and foretells the future.

About women in crisis --

• Self Made by Shira Gefen -- about two women living parallel lives, not very far away from each other, but separated by a checkpoint.
• Present Continuous by Aner Preminger -- about a woman having difficulty in letting her children become independent during a terrible period of bombings in Jerusalem.
• Fragile by Vidi Bilu -- set in Jerusalem of 1966, this is a study of a lonely woman.

Adaptations of literary works by David Grossman --

• Someone to Run With by Oded Davidoff -- a story of two adolescents, one of whom has the strength and courage to fight back against the world of drugs and teen exploitation -- two young people who are able to make a difference.
• Intimate Grammar by Nir Bergman -- a film about adolescent turmoil, set in Jerusalem of the 1960s.

In addition, I highly recommend two feature-length documentaries --

• Footsteps in Jerusalem (previously reviewed on this blog), 87 minutes, contemporary vignettes produced by graduates of the Sam Spiegel Film School, somewhat based on the classic documentary, In Jerusalem, by David Perlov.
• Ron Havilio's documentary, Fragments: Images of a Life in Jerusalem (1983-94) -- an epic film, not a documentary in the conventional sense, rather it is an ongoing diary of a filmmaker's personal impressions.  The film shows the filmmaker's attraction to the old neighborhood of Mamilla near the Jaffa Gate built along the divide between old and new, east and west, Arab and Jew.  Most of the old buildings of the neighborhood have now been torn down, replaced by upmarket housing and a fancy outdoor shopping mall.  But Havilio's images remain for future generations.

The following short films are also worth attention (also reviewed on this blog) -- 

• From Man to Man - We Pass Like Strangers by Daniel Gal -- 23 minutes, about the diversity of the people of Jerusalem.
• Day and Night by Sivan Arbel -- 51 minutes, the story of the Weingarten school in Jerusalem, which was established in 1902 as the first orphanage for girls in Israel.
• The Beetle by Yishai Oren -- a quirky Jerusalem mosaic about people, places, a young couple, and the history of their car.
• Jerusalem Moments, a series of short films from Ir Amim (2008) -- a collection of ten short films, which provide diverse perspectives on difficult issues about living together – Israelis and Palestinians – within the same city.

Some of the better older classics that take place on the background of Jerusalem include --

• Hide and Seek by Dan Wolman (1980) - about living in a society in conflict during the British Mandate period.  The film contains beautiful photography of Jerusalem and an authentically evoked period setting which portrays the conformity and loyalty required by a society under siege.  Wolman has used the theme of a Jew with an Arab lover, a well-known motif from Hebrew literature.  Setting his story in a difficult period in the history of the nation and adding a tale of homosexual love, he successfully interweaves the private anguish of an individual with the external pressures and political events of the time.
• Three Days and a Child by Uri Zohar (1967) - an adaptation of A B Yehoshua's well-known novel. This is the story of a stereotypical sabra -- tough and cynical on the outside, yet vulnerable on the inside, who encounters himself as he confronts the child of the woman he loves. 
• My Michael by Dan Wolman (1975) - an adaptation of the celebrated novel by Amos Oz. The setting is 1950s Jerusalem, a city divided.  A reflection of the divided city in which she lives, and unfulfilled by her peaceful and conventional life, Hannah abandons herself to a world of erotic fantasies and dreams in which both her past attraction to and fear of Arab twin boys, with whom she played as a child when Jerusalem was undivided, play a major role.  Wolman has created a work of art which illustrates the effect on people's lives of having to cope with the tensions of geographical and psychological divisions.
• Hill 24 Doesn't Answer by Thorold Dickinson (1954) -- which combines in-depth characterization and elements of romance and melodrama with authentically evoked historical incidents.  One of the vignettes is about a foreign volunteer fighting for the Old City of Jerusalem during the War of Independence.
• Moments by Michal Bat Adam (1979) -- the story of the meeting between a pensive young writer and a French tourist, both women, who develop a complex, intense relationship.  Having decided to book into the same quaint and luxurious Jerusalem hotel, the two women spend a few intense days together.  Shot at the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem, this setting lends a feeling of beauty to a film in which sensitivities and emotions are of the utmost importance.

Reality and Fantasy

Please check out my latest article on the Lilith magazine website which deals with Michal Bat-Adam's films, especially her latest film, Maya.

Michal Bat-Adam

Actress, director and scriptwriter, Michal Bat-Adam, has directed ten feature films, all dealing with complex relationships, unique friendships and passionate loves of women. Her most recent film, Maya (2010), is an in-depth look at an aspiring actress and how she becomes emotionally involved with her first major role.

Maya is an acting student. After a major disappointment, she finally succeeds in landing a major role, playing a young woman who goes crazy when her parents force her to have an abortion. The script is written by the director of the play, with whom Maya becomes involved, and this is a story that actually happened to his cousin, whom he loved. As Maya is becoming obsessively involved with her character, she goes to a mental hospital to learn more and she begins to see things radically differently from the director. Slowly, we see that Maya can't stop herself from becoming her character, and from interpreting her role in her own way, thereby offending her lover/director/playwright.

According to an Israeli radio interview with Michal Bat Adam (broadcast on Reshet Bet, May 14, 2010), this film is about the struggle between the truth of two different perspectives. Although the director sets the stage, the actress also is a human being with feelings and interpretations and experiences, and her perspective is also expressed.

However, as Maya becomes more and more drawn into her character, we must ask ourselves: where is the line that delineates between the actress' real self and the role that she is playing?

As the first Israeli woman to direct a feature film, Bat-Adam made her debut film, Moments, in 1979, a prize-winning film which expresses emotions and feelings cinematically rather than through the use of dialogue. Seen in flashback, the story is about Yola (Bat-Adam), a pensive young writer who meets Anne, a French tourist, on the train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This chance meeting develops into a complex, intense relationship which includes a powerful love between two women, a love expressed without physical contact, and later through the sexual sharing of the same male partner. By sharing her partner, Yola expresses her love for Anne.

More a love scene between two women than a three-way love affair, this is Yola's unique way of sharing intimacy with another woman. This triangular love scene offended the sensitivities of the 1979 Israeli Censorship Board and had to be trimmed before its Israeli release. In today’s world, it wouldn’t have caused any problems!

A film of telling looks, self-absorption and silences, Moments challenges traditional relationships and portrays more "between the lines", than up front on the screen. It is a story of metaphysical lesbian love which mellows with the years.

Two of Bat-Adam's films, A Thin Line (1980) and Aya, An Imagined Autobiography (1994), portray mother-daughter relationships. A Thin Line, Bat-Adam's second feature film, is a psychological study of a Tel Aviv woman with emotional problems. Similar to Moments in its emphasis on mood, feelings and facial expressions, A Thin Line is an autobiographical film which focuses on a mother's dependency on her 11-year-old daughter who struggles to sustain her in times of need. The girl's story is continued in Aya: An Imagined Autobiography, a more profound look at the emotional turmoil of the girl's life. Combining elements from her previous films, Aya (Bat-Adam), now a grown woman haunted by memories of her past, is making a film about her own life. Moving between past and present, the film does not tell a story as such, but instead provides fragments from Aya's life. "God exists in the little things," says filmmaker Aya, as the film concludes and the pages of her script whirl in the wind around her. Similar to other Bat-Adam films, Aya is a highly touching personal document about relationships between mother and daughter, the hardships of young girls growing up, and the conflicts of mature women as they grapple with memories of their past.

These two films, A Thin Line and Aya, An Imagined Autobiography, portray images of the Israeli/Jewish mother that have shifted from stereotypical portrayals of the overbearing and manipulative mother to rich characters grappling with difficult relationships. Bat-Adam has added more nuance and complexity to the classical stereotype (which originates in Yiddish and Hollywood films) of the Jewish mother.

The feature films directed by Michal Bat-Adam are Moments (1979), A Thin Line (1980), Boy Meets Girl (1983), The Lover (1986), A Thousand and One Wives (1989), The Deserter's Wife (1992), Aya: An Imagined Autobiography (1994), Love at Second Sight (1998), Life is Life (2003) and Maya (2010).

Short dramas about the Women of Israel

Here is a selection of some of my favorite short dramas, all produced during the last decade, about the women of Israel – Jews and Arabs, secular and ultra-orthodox, including rape, family honor, the conflict, settlers, Ethiopians, coexistence and even one animated film.

Mulu
Directed by Alamark Marsha
2008, 25 min.

This drama provides a look at the position of women in traditional Ethiopian society by portraying a woman who is unable to break out of the bonds that her marriage imposes upon her. In loving close-up, we watch every step as Mulu prepares Ethiopian bread. She is already a grandmother and discovers that she is pregnant again. One of her grown daughters tells her that she has enough children – but Mulu won’t listen to her. The same daughter wants her mother to sell her handicrafts and maybe even get a job. But Mulu’s husband is unable to cope with such changes in his world. He takes all of his wife’s woven baskets off the wall, down to the street, and lights a bonfire. Watching him from the window, Mulu does not stop him. This is her life and she knows that she cannot change it. But we know that her daughters already live in a different world.

Available from tikshoret@telhai.ac.il


Miracle Lady
Directed by Michal Abulafia and Moran Somer
2010, 10 min.

This is an animated feminist fable. Fortuna is an old lady who waits in her wedding gown for her husband, who died on their wedding day. Her next-door neighbor, Marcela, the servant of Rabbi Toledano, is even older and is awaiting death to come and take her away. One is waiting to live her life, the other is ready to end it. About broken promises and growing old.

available from: Bezalel academy of art and design, Jerusalem
festivals-liaison@bezalel.ac.il


Survival and the Art of the Joystick
Directed by Tsipi Houri
2002, 4 min.

Two sisters are riding on a road in the West Bank, on their way to visit their parents in Beth-El. One sister is experiencing more fear than the other. She says that riding along the road is like playing a computer game – either we’ll get there or we won't. She finds the landscape threatening, everything that she sees screams danger to her, she finds something to be afraid of hiding behind the trees and around each curve in the road. When they arrive at their home, there is fear there too since now they must lock the door. The other sister, who still lives at home with the parents in Beit El, says, you are part of the cult of fear, you can be blown up in Tel Aviv also. Two sisters who seem to be very different from each other.

From the series: Moments 2002, available from the National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University



Cohen's Wife (Eshet Cohen)
Dir: Nava Heifetz-Nussan
2000, 24 minutes

A hard-hitting drama about how ultra-orthodox Judaism deals with the rape of a Cohen’s wife. Even though a man who is a "cohen" must divorce his wife if she is raped, this film shows that even this can be interpreted with flexibility and compassion.

The young neighbor, Hannele, is witness to the rape. She is an interesting image – perhaps an image of naivety standing and watching. She symbolizes both knowledge and innocence. She is also witness to the reconciliation at the end.

At the end of the film, the husband returns to his wife, happy that the rabbinic court has permitted him to stay with her. But the woman looks at her husband at the end of the film with sadness. Why is she sad? Because no one has dealt with her trauma, helping her to come to terms with what happened. In fact, the rabbinic court’s “liberal" and "flexible” interpretation of the law has stifled or even denied her experience. Also, perhaps she is sad because her husband even considered leaving her, if need be. Rather, he should have stood up and declared that he wouldn’t turn her away, especially in her time of need.

So, this is a good ending – the court permits them to stay together and she has to forgive her husband for his wavering – instead of him having to forgive her for being impure and for being "guilty" of being raped. He begs her for forgiveness for his silence.

Available from Ma'aleh Film School
Available on streaming from Oomanut

Bus Station
Directed by Lily Sheffy
2008, 5 min.

Two women are at a bus stop – both wear black scarves, both are carrying vegetables from the market, both seem weary. When the tomatoes fall all over the ground, and both women stoop to pick them up, a conversation begins. The ultra-orthodox Jewish woman is interested in tomatoes bought from an Arab vendor because this is the shmita or sabbatical year and she is not permitted to buy fruits and vegetables from a Jewish vendor. She offers her tomatoes to the Arab woman. The Arab woman tries to pay for them and slips some money into the other woman’s bag. Right away, a Jewish man comes running. Having caught the Arab woman with her hand in the other’s bag, he is ready to accuse her of stealing. When matters are straightened out, the two women share pictures of their sons – one is called Ibrahim and one is called Abraham. The film -- a chance encounter on a Jerusalem street between two very different, yet similar women, each with a son whom she loves – puts a human face to the conflict.

Part of the Jerusalem Moments project 2008 -- Available from Ir Amim


Stitches
Dir: Dana Keidar
2010, 24 min.

Nadin is an Arab girl, preparing to be married. Her mother is making her a beautiful wedding dress. At a fruit picking and packing center, she picks berries with her friends and embarks on a sweet love affair with Shahar, the Jewish foreman. Her red nails are like the red berries, blood red, like the blood on her panties when she first sleeps with Shahar, the red of passion. Since she is about to be married, her girlfriend at work pushes her to go to a Jewish doctor to have her virginity restored. As planned, she marries her intended, a boy she doesn't love. A small slice-of-life in the Arab community.

Available from the Sam Spiegel Film and TV School, Jerusalem.