Sculpture at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
(I lost the sculptor's name, but I'll get it.)

Today was another successful research day, thanks to Uri Klein, film critic with Ha’Aretz newspaper. Klein is a well-known voice in the Israeli media, and in an hour’s time, he managed to bring me up to speed on what’s happening in Israeli cinema today—and what happened over the past 50 years or so. I’m grateful that Klein, his colleague Aviva Lori (see Day 6), and Aner Preminger (see Day 4, July 12) would be so open to helping out a stranger looking for information on their film culture.

Uri Klein

If Klein had merely given me a list of film recommendations for the course I’m developing on political cinema in this region—which, in fact, he has offered to do—the meeting would’ve been productive. Our conversation covered much more terrain, however, venturing as far back as Israel cinema in the 1950s, when, as Klein puts it, “Each film was a huge event and part of the Zionist endeavor.” Israelis were virtually obligated to attend them, he adds.

Contrast this with movie-going in the 1960s and 1970s, when Israeli cinema fell out of favor among Israelis. Klein made reference to comedies of that period, comparing them to a type of Balkan cheese-filled pastry (I should’ve asked him to spell that for me). He also noted that films shifted focus from being about Israel as a collective to more personal stories. During this period, some Israeli filmmakers were honing their craft in Europe or studying the emerging cinematic styles in Europe, such as the French New Wave and modernism in Italian cinema.

To cut to the chase, if you’ll pardon the pun, the current state of Israeli cinema Klein describes as a synthesis of film styles and emphases on personal as well as social narratives. What one sees on the screen, he adds, is a much more accurate depiction of what one sees in Israeli society—not the “mythical” unity that some would promulgate but, rather, a kind of mirror held up to Israel’s diversity. At the heart of the project, he says, is a cinematic examination of identity. What does it mean to be Israeli? What does it mean to be Jewish? What does it mean to be Muslim in Israel? What does it mean to be Muslim near Israel? What does it mean to be Ashkenazi, Sephardic, secular, Orthodox, gay, straight, rich, poor, Orthodox and gay—and to get along with everyone else who’s not like you? You get the picture. As Klein says, Israeli is “a series of others that deal with each other all the time.” And almost every contemporary film is “a world in itself: the search for a place in Israeli society.”

Given such rich dramatic material, it’s no surprise to me that Israeli movies of the past decade or so have distinguished themselves on the global film scene.

NEVER FORGET—IN LIFE OR IN FILM

One of the persistent themes in Israeli cinema is the Holocaust. I think it’s safe to say that this tragic chapter in human history holds a place in the collective Israeli consciousness. Contemporary filmmakers, even among the younger generation, take up the subject. Klein made special note of one such film, Walk on Water by director Eytan Fox.

Here’s the trailer from the Internet Movie Database.

Following my meeting with Klein, I took a trip out to Yad Vashem, the museum complex of the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. Yad Vashem is a must on any visit to Israel, in my opinion. While the mood is understandably somber throughout the grounds, museums, exhibitions, and research facilities, the facility tells this tragic story in ways that no movie ever could.

Memorial to the Deportees
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem