My Michael -- a landmark literary adaptation

This week, the Jerusalem Cinematheque is offering a retrospective of the films of Dan Wolman.  The opening event, which was held on Jerusalem Day, featured the screening of My Michael (1975), a landmark literary adaptation of the celebrated novel by Amos Oz, one of Israel's best-known contemporary writers.

Filmmaker Dan Wolman, one of Israel's most talented and creative filmmakers, was born and grew up in Jerusalem.  Two of his major films feature the city of Jerusalem as a major element in the narrative -- Hide and Seek (1980) and My Michael -- not to mention his documentary, To Touch a City (1978).

My Michael is set in early 1950s Jerusalem, which was divided in 1948 into an Arab sector and a Jewish sector, an event that split friendships and neighborhoods.  A reflection of the divided city in which she lives, Hannah, the heroine, becomes melancholy, isolated, and filled with conflict and tension. 

Hannah (Efrat Lavie) is a Hebrew literature student at the Hebrew University, a young woman of sensitivity and desire.  She is married to Michael (Oded Kotler), a reticent, sympathetic, hardworking geologist.  However, she is unfulfilled by the peaceful, humdrum, conventional life that they are leading.  She is melancholy, unhappy in her marriage, writing a diary.   Hannah slowly abandons herself to a world of dreams in which both her past attraction to and fear of Arab twin boys, with whom she played as  a child, play a major role.  As the film develops and the Arabs grow into mature men, her fantasies take on more erotic characteristics and, at the same time, become more violent, hinting at terror. 

The film is remarkable in many ways.  Firstly, much of it is filmed through windows, as we see people behind the window bars, giving the viewer a sense of peeking in at the lives of the people we are watching.  Secondly, the film, although filmed in 1974 Jerusalem, provides a look at life in the city of the 1950s.  It was a period of economic difficulty and things were basically dull and depressing -- before economic prosperity, with the city divided, before the era of museums, concert halls, theaters, and shopping malls.   

Hannah is a woman imprisoned by her husband's inarticulateness, by his reticence to tell her how he feels about things, and by her attraction to others.  When one of her neighbors has a mental breakdown and is sent to a nearby sanatorium, Hannah goes to visit and meets a woman who is a reflection of herself.  She whispers "sh, sh", and then screams frantically.  

The film concludes with Hannah finally breaking down, clanking her teaspoon back and forth on her teacup. This is a fascinating conclusion, offering a rhythmic allusion to the sound of the Arab stone masons, chipping away at a block of Jerusalem stone. According to Dan Wolman, it was Amos Oz's idea to end the film in this way. 

At the screening, Wolman told the audience how difficult it had been to find an Israeli distributor for this film because it was the post-Yom Kippur War period and people didn't want to see melancholy films.  Finally, the film was picked up by a local distributor and it had a very successful run in Israeli cinemas. 

   

Wolman also told the audience that while he is happy about this retrospective of his films, he prefers to look forward, rather than backward, and is indeed working on a new film!

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.

A tribute to Dan Wolman

Dan Wolman is one of my favorite Israeli artistic filmmakers. His films portray human characters, a deep level of emotion and sensitivity, combined with a particularly Israeli sense of aesthetics. Last week, a celebration was held in his honor at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, marking 40 years since the beginning of his work in the field of film. Forty years is a long time and during those years, Wolman has made 15 feature films, and more projects are in the works!

Wolman studied filmmaking in New York City in the 1960s. He told the audience honestly that there were things in Hollywood filmmaking at that time that might have silenced him as a filmmaker. But there were other things going on that empowered and inspired him – such as art films that went against the Hollywood style, real time documentaries and self-exposure or personal filmmaking.

Wolman's filmmaking was part of the new wave of artistic Young Israeli Cinema (acronym: Kayitz) that was taking place in the late 1960's and 70's in Israel. Quite different from the melodramas, heroic thrillers, teen sex films, light entertainment films and bourekas or ethnic comedies which made up Israeli cinema at the time, the style of the Kayitz directors viewed people as complex human beings (rather than superhuman heroes or ethnic stereotypes), and emphasized thoughtful dialogue, introspection and the examination of socio-psychological problems.

Wolman's first two films – The Dreamer (1970), Israel's official entry to the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, and Floch (1972), which represented Israel at the Venice Film Festival – are both low-budget portrayals of the problems and hardships of old age. The Dreamer takes place in old Tsfat which is a metaphor for the beauty, nostalgia and depth of old age. Floch, scripted by both Wolman and Hanoch Levin, was meant to be a universal and humanistic look at aging. Wolman told the audience at the Cinematheque last week that Amos Oz had seen Floch and when he approached him for permission to adapt his celebrated novel, My Michael, into a film, he agreed to give him full support. The resulting film, My Michael (1975), and his following film, Hide and Seek (1980) are stories of tensions and divisions in the city of Jerusalem.

In more recent years, Wolman's films have become a triumph of complex, personal filmmaking. He has not gone so far afield, however, from his earlier films and he continues to combine the personal with the national. The Distance (1994) deals with themes of family separation and the responsibility of a son to both his homeland and his aging parents. Foreign Sister (2000) draws attention to the issues and problems of foreign workers in Israel and especially highlights the relationship between two women – one a middle-class Jewish woman and the other an Ethiopian Christian. Wolman says that this film is clearly connected to the part of his life that he spent in Ethiopia with his parents as a child. Tied Hands (2006), a film of great intensity, starring Gila Almagor and Ido Tadmor, tells of a desperate attempt by a 70-year-old mother to communicate with and help her mature son, in his dying moments. On stage at the premiere screening at the 2006 Jerusalem Film Festival, Wolman dedicated the film to the mother of the filmmaker Amos Guttman (who was struck down by AIDS well before his time), who said, “parents should love their children as they are.”

The films of Dan Wolman are studies of people and relationships against a background of complex issues. He combines subtle, poetic and haunting personal stories with the larger issues of the surrounding community – and in this he has succeeded in bringing attention to major issues such as relationships with Arabs, social and legal problems of foreign workers, meaning of life and problems of the elderly, homosexuality and the tragedy of AIDS, and more.

Wishing Dan Wolman many more productive years of filmmaking!!
.