Eran Riklis

Last night at the opening of the Jerusalem Film Festival, Eran Riklis was presented with a life achievement award! Riklis is one of Israel's most successful directors and all of his films are issue-oriented, offering a critical view into the most important political and social issues of this period.

Born in Jerusalem in 1954, Riklis was educated and raised in Canada, the United States, Brazil and Israel.  After he studied film at Tel Aviv University (1975-77), he continued his studies in England and graduated from the National Film School at Beaconsfield (1982).

During his career, Riklis has directed dramas, documentaries and television series.  His documentary, Borders, about people who live and work along Israel's borders with its neighbors, won prizes at Munich, Houston and Mexico.   Riklis' feature films have won international acclaim by critics, audiences and festivals alike –

• On a Clear Day You Can See Damascus (1984) portrays a true story of an Israeli sympathizer who becomes a spy for Syria
• Cup Final (1991) explores themes of male bonding during wartime, the relationship between captor and captive, and the possibility of coexistence in the politically tense atmosphere of the Middle East, all on the background of a story about an Israeli soldier who is captured by a PLO unit during the war in Lebanon
• Zohar: Mediterranean Blues (1993) tells the tragic story of Israeli singer Zohar Argov
• Vulcan Junction (1999) about a rock band on the background of political issues
• Syrian Bride (2004) shows a bride as a metaphor for the Druze of the Golan Heights, caught between a rock and a hard place
• Lemon Tree (2008) is a story of two women – one Palestinian and one Israeli, definitely a film about vulnerability, victimization and the misuse of power
• The Human Resources Manager (2010) is a literary adaptation, based on a novel by A.B. Yehoshua, about the transformation of an Israeli self-centered workaholic into a man of caring and compassion as he tries to make atonement for the treatment of  migrant workers.

The impression is often that a life achievement award implies the end of a successful career.  But Eran Riklis feels that he has many productive years ahead, and he concluded his remarks at the award ceremony, quoting Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927), "You ain't seen nothing yet!"

Lemon Tree by Eran Riklis

Lemon Tree is a new and hard-hitting Israeli feature film, which tells a story of two women – one Palestinian and one Jewish. The basic plot revolves around the fact that the security establishment has decided to cut down Salma's lemon trees because they constitute a security threat.

Salma is a widow, the owner of a grove of lemon trees which is located on the border, right next to a Jewish settlement. Mira, the wife of the newly elected minister of defense, has recently moved into her new home in this border community. The two women exchange a few glances, they are conscious of each other, but their lives are defined and encompassed by political and gender considerations, and by a fence which separates them.

The Palestinian woman, Salma, is in a position of weakness politically and socially, but is strong in her determination and her courage. The Jewish woman, Mira, on the other hand, is in a position of strength politically, but she is weak. Although she does not want to be a party to the uprooting of her neighbor’s lemon trees, she is unable to stop it. She is weak in the face of the platitudes that her husband spouts. The two women look out at each other’s homes, across the divide, but are unable to bridge the issues that separate them. They are both victims of the male leadership of their societies that keeps them apart. Only once, Mira shouts "I am sorry," to Salma.

Salma's lawyer brings her case to court and then makes an appeal before the Supreme Court. Salma is saluted as a symbol for the entire Palestinian people. According to Eran Riklis, she is an Erin Brokowitz character, going on a legal journey for what is right. She is also a woman linked to mother earth, a fertile woman -- as a mother and grandmother, and more symbolically, she is tied to the fruit of the land, her lemons. Yet, she is a woman trapped in a deadlocked situation, similar to the Druze woman in Eran Riklis' previous film, The Syrian Bride. The Jewish woman, Mira, seems to be no less trapped in an untenable situation.

Uprooting TreesIs it possible that security considerations could justify the uprooting of the lemon trees? Except for Salma and Mira, everyone seems to agree that it is either necessary or inevitable. The film's soundtrack includes a rendition of Peter, Paul and Mary's: "Lemon tree very pretty and the flower is so sweet, but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat."

Even though during Biblical times, Jews were forbidden to cut down fruit trees, even when laying siege to the enemy (Deuteronomy 20:19), the Israeli army has actually been uprooting olive trees in the West Bank for security reasons. The gnarled olive tree is deeply rooted in this land and the olive branch is a symbol of peace. But the security establishment feels that olive trees must be cleared from along the border areas due to security considerations. In this film, Eran Riklis has chosen to use the bittersweet lemon instead of the olive as a symbol of the dispute between Palestinians and Israelis. The lemon is both sweet and sour and much more striking in its color, perhaps therefore more cinematic!

The above-mentioned reference from Deuteronomy 20:19, "When you lay siege to a city for many days, in making war against it, you shall not destroy the trees," continues by making a comparison between man and a tree: "for man is the tree of the field." Why does the Torah make this comparison between man and a tree? The film also refers to a more contemporary and popularized version of this comparison -- an Israeli song, written by Natan Zach, and sung by Shalom Chanoch: "Man is the tree of the field."
כי האדם עץ השדה
כמו העץ הוא צמא למים

Mankind, like a tree, needs land, water, air and sunshine to flourish. In the film, the wise, old Palestinian worker refers to one more characteristic that mankind has in common with trees. When he testifies in court, he states: "Trees are like human beings with a soul." Perhaps trees have even more humanity than human beings.

Lemon Tree has recently become available for rental on DVD.