March/April 2009-Opinion

Israeli Films Boldly Go Where Few Politicians Dare
Eric Alterman

I’m a moviegoer, and lately an amazing percentage of the really good—even great—movies I have seen were Israeli-made. Almost all were superior to the American films I’ve seen in the same period. Emotionally powerful, thoughtful and nuanced, they focus on the most contentious issues in Israeli society, from the split between religious and secular Jews to the omnipresent Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Together with movies released to the wider American public and justly acclaimed, like Waltz with Bashir, The Band’s Visit and Beaufort, there are three less talked about Israeli gems that I hope will get a wider viewing at festivals, in synagogues and in homes.

The first film that I loved beyond reason is The Secrets, a hauntingly beautiful depiction of the lives of independent-minded, young Orthodox Jewish women (directed by the Israeli filmmaker Avi Nesher from a screenplay he wrote with Hadar Galron, a London-born feminist playwright, actress and Orthodox Jew). The film centers on Naomi, a rabbi’s daughter who seeks to forestall her marriage to her father’s favorite pupil by escaping to a women’s seminary in Safed. There, she befriends the rebellious Michelle, and the two devise a purification ritual, in defiance of Orthodox prohibitions, for Anouk (Fanny Ardant), a Frenchwoman who spent years in prison for murdering her lover. Also defying the norm, the girls’ friendship grows into romantic love, and the secret does not stay in Safed. Naomi and Michelle are ultimately unable to reconcile the conflicting pulls of the secular and religious worlds and part ways.

A doomed love affair also features prominently in For My Father, directed by Dror Zahavi and written by Ido Dror. It tells the story of Tarek, a would-be Palestinian suicide bomber, who falls in love with an Israeli girl estranged from her Orthodox family. Tarek’s father, an informant for the Israelis, wants to secure his son’s access to Nazareth, where Tarek is a budding soccer star whose career is threatened by Israeli border closings. In turn, Tarek seeks to restore his father’s honor by becoming a suicide bomber. When his explosives fail to detonate at Tel Aviv’s Carmel market on a Friday, he finds himself stuck in the city, waiting for an electronics part to be delivered on Sunday. He strikes up a friendship with a Jewish mechanic, who tells him about the death of his son in a training accident. He also meets the headstrong Keren, who runs a nearby kiosk. After Keren is threatened by an ultra-Orthodox man who wants her to return to the community, Tarek comes to her aid and their romance kicks off.

There is no happy ending. Under pressure, Tarek carries out his suicide mission but does it in a way that demonstrates both the hopelessness of his situation and his desire to defy his handlers. He removes the nails that were placed in the bomb to cause maximum damage and then forms a ring from them that he leaves for Keren as a token of his love.

Lemon Tree, the third film, is based on the true story of a Palestinian widow who defends her lemon tree grove when a new Israeli defense minister moves into a house adjacent to her land on the Green Line. Israel’s security forces decide that terrorists could take cover among the aromatic trees and declare the grove a safety threat. Directed by Eran Riklis and written by Riklis with Suha Arraf, who also co-wrote The Syrian Bride, the film stars the famed Israeli Arab actress Hiam Abbass as Salma, the widow. Salma, whose family has tended the lemon grove for generations, takes her fight to preserve her quiet way of life to Israel’s High Court of Justice. She finds an unlikely ally in the defense minister’s wife but ultimately loses the case. No happy ending here, either.

It’s not simply that these movies are morally serious in a way that almost no American movies are. What struck me even more is that they force a confrontation with issues that, from the cafés of Tel Aviv to the research labs of Haifa, tend to be purposely forgotten. One does not have to take a position on who is ultimately responsible for the deep injustice committed against Palestinians. The duality of Israeli life is what is most interesting in these films.

The late Palestinian scholar Edward Said once told me that driving from the West Bank into Israel—in the days when that was still possible—felt like leaving Bangladesh and entering southern California. Most Israelis, I imagine, would like nothing better than to ignore that duality, but whatever the weaknesses of their leadership, only a paid propagandist for a major American Jewish organization could possibly believe that the Palestinians’ misery is entirely their own fault.

The Israelis are producing a culture that confronts—if it does not solve—the contradictions of a vibrant democracy existing within the context of a brutal occupation. For My Father is a sympathetic portrait of a suicide bomber. Lemon Tree treats the vaunted Israeli justice system as a kangaroo court when it comes to the territories.

Israel’s American apologists routinely brand as anti-Semitic virtually any attempt to address these contradictions in political discourse in the United States. Given the investment that so many of these organizations have in promoting the threat of anti-Semitism, I don’t expect this situation to change anytime soon. But since Israel is held up by so many as a continuing “light unto all nations,” perhaps these American leaders might want to sit in the dark with a few of these movies. They won’t only be entertained. They’ll be enlightened.