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23rd ISRAEL FILM FESTIVAL CELEBRATES ISRAEL'S 60TH ANNIVERSARY AND THE BEST OF ISRAELI CINEMA
June 12 - 26, 2008
By Staff Writer
The 23rd Israel Film Festival, the largest showcase of Israeli films in the United States, will screen close to 60 Israeli features, documentaries and award-winning student films in Los Angeles from June 12 - 26, 2008. In honor of Israel's 60th anniversary, the Festival will host an unprecedented Retrospective of classic Israeli movies.
The Festival's Opening Night on June 12 will be the U.S. Premiere of The Secrets. A reception with the director and guest filmmakers will follow. The Spotlight Premiere Screening of Noodle will be screened on June 14 at Laemmle's Royal Theatre. All other films will screen at Laemmle's Sunset 5, Laemmle's Royal Theatre, and Laemmle's Fallbrook 7.
To purchase tickets call
1-877-966-5566 or visit www.israelfilmfestival.com. Tickets are available for advance purchase May 30. Ticket prices are: $11 for general admission, $9 for senior citizens (62 and older), children (under 12) and students with proper ID. Weekday matinees (shows before 6 p.m.) are $8 for all filmgoers. A Festival Pass (buy five, get one free) is available for $55 (restrictions apply - vouchers must be exchanged at the box office a half-hour prior to showtime and are not available for sold-out screenings). Tickets for Opening Night Screening and Reception are $60. Tickets for Spotlight Premiere Screening are $18. Tickets for the Gala Awards Dinner at The Beverly Hilton Hotel are $350/seat (contact: robin@lpaevents.com).
Festival Narrative Features:
The Secrets
Naomi postpones marriage to the prodigy of her ultra orthodox rabbi father to study at a Jewish seminary for women in the ancient Kabalistic seat of Safed following her mother's death. Her quest for individuality takes a defiant turn when she befriends Michelle, a free-spirited but headstrong fellow student. Their unlikely alliance is jeopardized by a mysterious older woman named Anouk, a terminally ill tortured soul shunned by the community for her crime of passion. Together, they attempt to purge her sins through a series of secret rituals.
Noodle, Los Angeles Premiere
Miri, a twice war-widowed 37-year-old El Al flight attendant, is unexpectedly grounded when she finds herself saddled with a small Chinese boy. She's suddenly unchained from a melancholy existence that's also marked by mistreatment at the hands of her sarcastic sister, Gila, a fellow flight attendant who frets about whether she should dump her husband, Izzy. In attempting to return the child to his migrant-worker mother who has been deported from Israel, she embarks on a remarkable journey full of drama and humor that brings deep meaning to her life.
The Debt, U.S. Premiere
Rachel is a retired Mossad agent whose recently published memoirs boast how she helped capture a monstrous Nazi war criminal known as the "Surgeon of Birkenau." But complications ensued, the prisoner never went on trial and a story was fabricated about him committing suicide. More than 30 years later, a frail, perhaps delusional, man in a nursing home in the Ukraine claims to be the surgeon, and Rachel, long considered a national hero, has some unfinished business.
The Galilee Eskimos
An old kibbutz plunges into bankruptcy. Men, women and children abandon their homes, leaving behind a desolate scene except for a dozen residents of an old-folk's home on the property who discover they have been deserted and are left to fend for themselves. The largest creditor, a bank, closes a deal with a contractor who arrives at the kibbutz and is astonished to discover that the senior citizens were left behind.
Foul Gesture
On the morning of Holocaust Memorial Day, Michael Klienhouse's personal nightmare begins when he encounters Dreyfus, a 60-year-old war hero Michael's wife, Tamar, has just flipped the middle finger to Dreyfus, who deliberately hits the gas pedal of his car and runs into Michael's open door, almost hitting her. Michael, a law-abiding citizen, hopes to resolve the situation with the help of the authorities, only to learn that Dreyfus is a violent man with connections and friends in high places.
The Little Traitor
This beautiful story of an implausible friendship between an amiable British soldier and a spirited, 11-year-old Israeli militant who wants the occupying imperialists off his land takes place just a few months before Israel achieves independent statehood. When Proffy Liebowitz meets British officer Sergeant Dunlop, he's reprimanded for roaming the streets after dark and breaking curfew. They later become friends, but town officials soon learn of their secret and accuse the boy of being a traitor.
Strangers
Strangers puts love to the test in time of war. Eyal, an Israeli kibbutznik, and Rana, an expat Palestinian living in Paris, visit Berlin for the 2006 World Cup finals where they're forced to share an apartment. Over three intensive days their friendship turns to love as they're drawn out of the stark reality of their lives and into a passionate affair as the second Israel-Lebanon war plays out.
The Shelter
An Israeli father and his 11-year-old son are forced to take refuge in an underground shelter during a missile attack. When the son awakes that next morning, he's shocked to learn from his father that the bombing resulted in severe destruction and together they must get accustomed to their new underground reality, which includes food and water shortages. .
Festival Encore Feature Pres-entations
The Band's Visit
When the Alexandria Cere-monial Police Orchestra arrives in Israel from Egypt to perform at a cultural event in Petah Tikva, they're left stranded at the airport and wind up in the wrong town. Each of the eight band members attempts to interact with the locals, who feel their impact.
Beaufort
Beaufort chronicles the life of Liraz Liberti, a 22 year-old outpost commander, and his troops in the months before Israel pulled out of Lebanon. It's a story of retreat, not war - one with no enemy, only an amorphous entity that drops bombs from skies while terrified young soldiers who quake in their boots must somehow find a way to carry out their mission until their final moments on that mountaintop. As Liraz lays the explosives that would destroy the very same structure his friends had died defending, he witnesses the collapse of all he's been taught as an officer, as well as his foot soldiers' mental and physical disintegration.
Festival Feature Documentaries
I'm a Civil War
Born in 1923, the 84-year-old Tel Aviv native made his mark as an author, journalist and filmmaker whose first book, "Flowers of Fire," was published in 1949 when he still was a soldier. Guori, who takes a critical look at the political and social reality of his beloved homeland, mourns from the northern border next to Mettula that "everything has changed and the feeling of hatred and being under siege continues and the land continues to bleed."
Peres Rabin
You will be deeply moved by this extraordinarily gripping exploration of the complex professional and personal ties linking Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, two men with radically different backgrounds and temperaments whose actions - and rivalry - dramatically shaped today's Middle East. Filmmaker Henig uses never-before-seen footage and exclusive interviews to present the two men in a fresh light.
Pray in Her Own Voice
Jewish tradition and modern life clash in this spellbinding portrait of the famed Women of the Wall movement as it does battle with the ultra-orthodox establishment in Israel over their right to wear prayer shawls and read aloud from the Torah at the Western Wall. These courageous women are followed for two years during religious services, hearings at the Israeli Supreme Court and violent confrontations with their opponents. Their struggle is seen as a test case for the deprived status of women in Israeli public life, religious coercion and the hunger for equality.
The Quest for the Missing Piece
Oded Lotan, a young Jewish gay man living in Tel Aviv with his German partner, pieces together the story of his own bris while reflecting on the complex role his sexuality and time abroad has played in shaping his Israeli identity. The Stone Flower
The Stone Flower traces the lives of two elderly Jewish women, Ilanit and Naima, who came to Israel from Iran 50 years ago and married when they were young teenagers. Ilanit's husband humiliated and beat her, but still she took care of him when he became sick. Naima had good relations with her husband and was surrounded by children and grandchildren who she always dutifully served. Now, 70-years-old, both women reflect on the choices they made and were forced to make.
Waiting for Godik
This intimate look at the rise and fall of legendary producer and impresario Giora Godik examines the Israeli King of Musicals' quest to bring the American dream to Tel Aviv. That vision ended when Godik unexpectedly fled to Germany on the eve of his last premiere and ended up selling hotdogs for a living at the central railway station in Frankfurt.
Kung Fu Panda
By Scott Mendelson
Kung Fu Panda is flawed in many of the places you'd expect, but it is surprisingly successful in other areas. It packs an unexpected wallop in key dramatic scenes, and the film isn't shy about the kicks and the punches. The kung fu hurts in this film as much as its PG rating will allow. As a result, the film fails as a comedy but is successful as an action picture, and occasionally as a drama.
A bit of plot: In ancient China, Po (Jack Black, giving a more realistic and human performance than he usually does when playing a live-action human being) is an overweight and over-eating panda bear. Although his father (James Hong, a national treasure as always) hopes and prays that his son will follow in his footsteps as a noodle cook, Po has a yearning for kung fu. When the day comes for the legendary 'dragon warrior' to be chosen, he sneaks into the ceremony to see the spectacle. As ancient master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) waits to decide among the five most likely contenders, Po watches through a peephole in anticipation. Although Master Shufu (Dustin Hoffman in his best work since Stranger Than Fiction) presumes that the chosen one will be among his five favorite students, fate plays a hand, and Po is miraculously chosen as the vaulted Dragon Warrior. Now a disgruntled Shufu must train Po in the ways of kung fu before the murderous Tai Ling (Ian McShane) escapes his prison cell and attempts to take his revenge on Shufu.
The set-up for what I have just described is a little loose and not a little dull. Most of the feared Jack Black over-the-top comic antics occur in the first act, and the film suffers from his usual buffoonery. But once Po is chosen and once Tai Ling is introduced, the picture kicks into gear. Ling's prison is a wonderfully imaginative visual and his escape rivals any action scene in Speed Racer or Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.
In fact, despite the fact that this is a 'kids cartoon', it is credible as a martial arts adventure. The fight scenes, when they arrive, are long, brutal, and dramatically potent. They are real throw downs, with the benefit of superior animation, which allows the flying and leaping to be that much more possible and plausible. Tai Ling is given a true menace and a multi-layered back story that connects him very personally and sympathetically with Master Shufu (his origin is similar to Anakin Skywalker or Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). The major showdown between Shufu and Tai Ling is emotionally charged, relatively violent, and completely compelling.
Also making the film work is the truly stellar vocal work of the main characters. Dustin Hoffman turns in a beautifully shaded and subtle read, portraying the tragedy of a teacher who cannot show love to his pupils because he blames love for his greatest failure. Ian McShane is truly intimidating, adopting a low-key Michael Wincott villainy. His back story and his subsequent actions allow us to fear and sympathize with him, which adds an element of pathos to what follows.
The main fault is the lack of real arcs to the Fatal Five, the prize pupils of Shufu who each represent a specialized type of kung fu. Angelina Jolie voices Tigress, Jackie Chan voices Monkey, Lucy Lui voices Viper, Seth Rogan voices Mantis, and David Cross voices Crane. Yet only Tigress gets the slightest arc and the other four performers get a total of maybe twenty lines of dialogue combined. On the plus side, Randall Duk Kim gets a terrifically moving final scene with Hoffman.
Befitting the high budget and prestige of DreamWorks animation, much of the animation is beyond gorgeous, appearing to be truly 3-dimensional even on a 2D IMAX screen. Shot in 2.35:1 scope, this is perhaps the most visually arresting cartoon that DreamWorks has ever made, and the authentic Chinese locations rival Ratatouille for visual splendor.
Kung Fu Panda is not a masterpiece, but it is easily one of the best DreamWorks cartoons in their canon. It is not as good as Over The Hedge, or the first two Shrek films, but it is about as good as Antz, and it easily surpasses anything else they've made. The expected lowbrow Jack Black bumbling is present and accounted for, but the film eventually moves past that and settles in as a credible action cartoon with several surprisingly potent dramatic scenes and a few terrific action set-pieces. It works both as a placeholder for Wall-E and a solid family-friendly entertainment in its own right. In short, Kung Fu Panda kicks ample amounts of butt.
'THE STRANGERS'
NIGHT SWEAT
By Sean Chavel
In a movie culture of slasher horror flicks brimmed with mindless terror, is it possible to find a horror movie with intriguing terror? The Strangers, with Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman as an attractive young couple terrorized by masked stalkers who take their remote vacation home under siege, is a merciless exhibition in sadism and malevolence. What kind of justification can be made for a film whose intention is to make you scream out your lungs?
Enough, a matter of fact. The film benefits from believable turns by Tyler and Speedman as the put upon couple. As Kristen and James, the couple fighting for survival make as many smart decisions as they do dumb ones (some would argue that they don't make any smart decisions at all). The couple find themselves as trapped rats, combing through the house for defensive tools and for a safety harbor.
The three stalkers - terrorizing without motive - psychologically taunt the couple as if it was sick amusement. They're first move is to toss the couple's cell phones - our modern day lifeline - into the fireplace. The trio rarely speak, not even to each other. The games begin as they bang on doors, write cryptic messages on windows, set escape vehicles on fire, and stand at a safe distance ominously while donning fright masks. Perhaps these three sociopaths (hooligans?) wouldn't be as scary without the masks. By remaining ominously silent, the sociopaths never announce their ultimate intentions. Kristen and James are debilitated by unexplained fear - they're freaked out by the in-the-moment unknown.
The first dumb action by Kristen and James is a rather realistic behavioral response. James has returned from a late-night cigarette craving and Kristen is bawling her eyes out with urgent need to express what scary things happened while he was away. James acknowledges her fear but underscores it - a male ego instinctual response that all is safe as long as he is now here. With haste, he begins to check the house for intruders. If he gave Kristen another minute to talk, she would have emphasized more details pertinent to their situation. But James wants to calm her fear without hearing the full story. Mistake Number One.
Once Kristen's fears are validated, the couple knows they're in a mortal struggle akin to the fact that escape from the premises is no longer an option. James raids through the shelves and closet crannies for dad's shotgun. A smart decision - in my judgment - is made to shelter themselves in one of the bedrooms. Hiding behind a thickly padded love chair, James places the barrel of the gun on an armrest waiting for any unexpected intruder to enter the doorway. If they wait until daylight they can nearly guarantee survival. But stemming from a state of panic, they grow impatient and decide to roam through the house to reconsider alternate plans they hope can resolve their situation faster. Mistake Number Two. To jump ahead, let's just say that the victims separating from each other to perform different tasks is Mistake number three. More mistakes are subsequently made but you get the idea.
The scenario isn't too far from the set-up of "Funny Games" from earlier this year. The victim spouses in that film made the same Mistake Number Two as the Tyler and Speedman couple: if they retreated to their safe zone for the remainder of the night they would increase their chances. It's incredulous that real people would lack that kind of patience in this kind of horrible situation, but you never know. If Tyler and Speedman composed themselves successfully they could assess their situation and out-power their intruders. What's scary about the film, if you pause for this idea, is that the victims throw themselves into a losing disposition because they can't manage their stress levels.
For those few moviegoers that saw "Funny Games," they might want to know that while that film was disturbing in its cold-hearted authenticity, "The Strangers" is designed to be a more mainstream jump-out-of-your-seat thriller. Some will criticize that the film's scares are manipulative. Sure, but it's effectively manipulative. Some will balk at the associated term "mainstream," which it very much is, but it's above-average in its class because the film takes its characters' shivery fear seriously, and the direction of the film (by first-timer Bryan Bertino, who has a superb camera eye) taps into the audience's primal fears. In such ghastly predicaments, What Would You Do?
Of course this movie isn't made for everyone. The faint of heart should stay far, far away. It will certainly scare the living daylights out of some people who may scream for the exits. From my personal perspective, I find the mechanics of evil strangely curious. How you dodge evil is another facet I find strangely curious.
'SEX AND THE CITY'
A BIG DEAL
By Sean Chavel
There are more costume changes in Sex and the City than any other movie in memory. I wouldn't be surprised if over a million dollars was spent on the wardrobe department in the film's budget. Among the designer brands are Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Fendi, Christion Dior, Ralph Lauren, Valentino, Versace, Vivienne Westwood, Gucci and dozens more according to the press notes. On occasion Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda (well not so much her) tell us what designer they're wearing.
Women in the Big Apple, according to Carrie, live by the two LL's: Love and Labels. We know what the labels are but how 'bout the love? When the show left the air in 2004, the Fab Four had finally found love - sometimes in the most unexpected places. Samantha (Kim Cattrell) had landed Malibu hunk Smith Jerrod, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) had landed down-to-earth bartender Steve Brady, Charlotte (Kristen Davis) had landed bald head lawyer Harry, and most significantly, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) had landed and trapped the elusive Mr. Big. The men by the way are portrayed by Jason Lewis, David Eisenberg, Evan Handler and Chris Noth in respective order.
The movie continues where it left off with all four now settled down and supposedly living the fairy tale. But in one way or another each woman hits the rocks. Every crisis and fall-out is given a lush and expansive big screen treatment (the movie runs at 2 hours and 26 minutes). But that doesn't mean there isn't time for the movie to take a time out for the occasional fashion show. Carrie, for instance, looks absolutely fabulous in a Vivienne Westwood wedding gown (she's doing a guest model spread for Vogue magazine when she's not penning sex and relationship books). Behold "Sex" fans however for the big surprise: Carrie and Mr. Big are finally going to tie the knot. At least, supposedly, but there are jitters.
One of the little dramas is whether Carrie should wear a Vivienne Westwood gown at her wedding that's been offered to her complimentary. Or if she should wear a vintage white button-up that has no particular designer brand (it looks like something Annie Hall would wear). The audience is supposed to gasp and perhaps shout at the screen, "Wear the Vivienne Westwood gown!" Carrie, you'd think, would know better to wear the Vivienne Westwood.
Meanwhile, as they say, Miranda is having troubles juggling career and parenthood and it leads to parent separation. Wanton Samantha is having troubles with living the L.A. life tied down to one single man. Charlotte is having troubles what made her so interesting when the cable show premiered on HBO in 1998 before her character was transitioned into a shallow creampuff (does anyone remember that she was a sophisticated art dealer in the early years?) And Carrie of course has interminable struggles as always trying to tame Mr. Big. To describe Mr. Big, he's sort of the modern day caveman version of Cary Grant. Debonair in appearance but on occasion a romantic numbskull. His cluelessness leads to a botched wedding day.
All four women eventually embark to Mexico for vacation (the dullest stretch of the film) where Carrie sulks in self-pity after being jilted and Charlotte eats lots of chocolate pudding. Lots of it. Translation: She doesn't trust Mexico's contaminated water and food supply. Besides the five-star villa where the women make their stay and a moment or two by poolside, there's not much on sight in the Mexico scenes. New York is the natural habitat for these women, it's where all the flash is. And
the glitter. And the five hundred dollar purses.
On the rebound from romantic disaster, Carrie hires an assistant (Jennifer Hudson of "Dreamgirls") upon return to Upper East Side Manhattan to help organize her life and apartment while she finishes her next book. Hudson is a fun addition to the cast injecting lots of spunk and sass. But mostly the movie cuts back and forth and checkpoints through story beats. Slowly around the plot sphere, the women patch up their troubles.
One of the inevitable pitfalls of the movie is that all the women now all well-defined. In the early days of the show, everyone was jumbling through chaotic relationships and uncertain futures. The movie has to fabricate these "obstacles" which are to be predictably overcome. The women were once sophisticated but liberated party girls of the night. As a guy, I happed to have followed the show to a certain degree (Season 1 is great television, and episode 10 "Baby Shower" is perhaps the most brilliant and scathingly funny thirty minutes of television that I've ever seen). And what I figured out is that I liked the early years with the characters as entertaining wrecks before they became domesticated and squared down.
What results is a movie that will interest long-time fans of the show more than the unacquainted. As someone that caught the series' episodes as well as the movie, I can complain that I miss Carrie's incisive newspaper columns. Samantha's constant bed-hopping. Charlotte from Season
But at the least, Miranda's anal retentiveness remains frantically intact.
‘SAVAGE GRACE’
THE TRAGEDY OF ENTITLEMENT
By Sean Chavel
Selfish rotten aristocrats. That is the best way to describe father, mother and son in Savage Grace, a tragedy of languid privilege in six acts. The characters, attended with indispensable wealth acquired by Bakelite plastics fortune, in each act travel to New York, Paris, Cadaques, Mallorca and London, and then back to New York again. Or is it Paris? Or is it London? It’s hard to remember because the final act is hermetic in its setting with mom and son indulging in debauchery in their upscale residence. Irrevocable damage sucks up both of them.
Aside from the headlines grabbing true story (it’s adapted by the non-fiction book by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson), the selling point of the movie is the presence of Julianne Moore who is the most courageous of all actresses working today. Not many actresses would take a part that requires a failure of moral compass. She mistakes insensitivity for sensitivity, affection for voraciousness, motherly love for motherly wreckage. Yet her Barbara is hardly the most contemptuous family member in this story.
While on indeterminate holiday (it’s a beach and villa episode), son Tony (Eddie Redmayne) brings home a Spanish beauty that results in casual sex and shallow love. Before their relationship is able to develop into something cherishable and meaningful, father Brooks (Stephen Dillane) seduces the young girl. Leaving Tony abandoned by his girlfriend and father at the same time. Brooks never returns to his wife and son.
Tony is teetering on the edge of homosexuality and he experiments with beach boys soon after. Another holiday is another hedonistic adventure. Barbara becomes sexually involved in her son’s boyfriends, too, and there comes an unspoken agreement to share these bi-sexual guys. Nothing crosses the limits between mother and son, and so here develops a portrait of family dysfunction and lives in unsacred oblivion.
To keep watching this film requires a morbid fascination to observe callous and selfish behavior. Mother and son go through high tempers, insouciance, and squabbling with each other. They see their transgressions as pushing the limits rather than acts of foolishness. By the time you reach the film’s most perverse moments, the film breaks the beyond into more perverse behavior. You will either go Wow! or Ugh!
Still, you might be lost as to what it all is supposed to mean to us or to director Tom Kalin (“Swoon”) who obviously was compelled to get this movie made. During the course of the movie it is hard to tell what the point this story is driving at until you get to the tragedy at the very end. Then you have to look at retrospect with what you saw with your own mental playback because no preceding story information has prepared us for the finale. The reasoning as to the characters’ behavior is still a mystery. You have to fill in the gaps that the filmmaker didn’t put up on screen.
Now about that Wow! You will only go wow out of surprise that characters could behave so despicably. As a prospective audience member, you will need an ugly curiosity, or a die-hard admiration for Julianne Moore, to sit through this. But it’s more about Tony, who by the end of his teen years turned into a lonely, pathetic soul devoid of ordinary boyhood activities. In blunt truth, I can’t think of another film in recent times then left me awash in such negative spirits afterwards. **