Film Festival

The summer heat is on and I am back at the annual Jerusalem Film Festival.  It's not Cannes, but for Israel it's the closest thing.  I'm sitting at the Cinemateque having a bulgarit cheese sandwich with pesto and basil at the kiosk inside and am watching cameramen and photographers chase people I don't recognize.  I don't care that I don't recognize local celebs.  I'm more interested in watching the elegantly dressed people.  It's a fashion show here and a joy for a people-watcher like myself. 

I didn't buy as many tickets as I did last year.  I'm on a tighter budget this year.  I took my son to the opening film Super 8, at the beautiful open-air Sultan's Pool, getting us free tickets by asking people at the gate if they had any extra tickets.  Usually many complimentary tickets are given out to groups, like the police force, and not everyone goes.  My son was highly embarrassed watching me grovel for tickets and moved several meters away from me as I did my thing.  He gave me a dirty look from where he was sitting and called me on my cell.

"I'm leaving soon.  You are embarrassing me!"

"Stick around son.  I've been doing this for years.  It takes me about 1/2 an hour, but I always get tickets."

He hung up on me and sure enough, a few minutes later, I got us two free tickets.

I phoned him back.

"Happy?  The guy doesn't even know us, so what is there to be embarrassed about?" I told my boy, as he didn't want to go in at the same time as our benefactor.

I appeased him by buying him stir fried noodles at the food stands inside.  There was free popcorn too.  As last year, they cut down on the pre-screening entertainment - no bands, no singers, no fireworks, just speeches for an hour.  I warned my son about this.  I had to, or he wouldn't wait for the movie to begin.   I enjoyed the Spielberg-produced movie about youngsters filming a train crash and the action/suspense resulting from it and I think my son did so too, although he would have preferred to watch Scream 10 on the giant screen.

Saturday I hitched into Jerusalem for my traditional day at the film festival and saw Sing Your Song about the life of Harry Belafonte.  The woman sitting next to me apologized to me in case she happens to sing along to his tunes off-key.

Now Harry B. has got to be the handsomest 84 year old man I have ever seen in my life!  Not only that, but I never knew what a wonderful civil rights activist he was until now and what a guy.  The early documentary  footage was excellent. How scandalous it was with him holding hands with white women in the 50s and 60s.

I remember when living in Toronto that we had invited his niece who was a "Belfont" who was an Orthodox Jew (I guess his brother converted to Judaism) to our home for Shabbat lunch or dinner which ended when she and her friend called my husband an "asshole" and walked out of our home. So I was curious to know more about Harry.  After the film an older woman remarked to a guy selling subscriptions to the financial paper, theMarker, what a wonderful movie it was.  As if he gave a fuck.  He just wants to sell his papers.  I did find the film inspiring and I told her so.  She looks at me, a stranger talking to her, as if I'm the crazy one..

Then I saw a film - If Not Us, Who? - an interesting German film about the early life of the German terrorists from the Baader-Meinhoff gang, focusing on Baader in the latter part of the film.

The third film Archipelago, was a tiring, boring British film.  One of my friends enjoyed it, the others, including me, thought it was torture to sit through.  "You don't understand the British" my friend who liked the film told me...."they're like this."  Not my British friends.  They're more the Monty Python or rocker types.

I saw Blagues a Part - a French filmmaker wanders throughout Palestine looking for Palestinian humor.  Also an enjoyable documentary.  

The last film I saw was The Way Back.  I thought it was excellent, beautifully filmed -  about escaped prisoners from Siberia making their way through Siberia, to Mongolia, through the Gobi desert, to China, to Tibet towards India.  A must-see for history/travel buffs. 

Be careful what you see

I was getting so tired of my son showing me the same scenes from his new favorite movie, Bruno.  So I was happy to run away from home to the Jerusalem International Film Festival. For the past 10 days I saw around 13 films. I usually go with a friend to the opening and to the Saturday films, but this friend decided to take a real summer vacation and go off to the U.S. of A.   I can't blame her.  Hubby joined me at the last moment for the opening flick Le Rafle about the French deportation of Jews during the Holocaust.  Very moving, very well done.  I'm not a movie critic so that's about all you'll get from me. I didn't know if he'd keep up with subtitles, but he actually did a good job.  He's not a foreign film person.  No one in my family is but me.

Friday I saw Melody for a Street Organ, a Ukranian film about two young children who search for their fathers because their mother died, and the coldness of the Ukranian winters and  the coldness of the people who shunted these children around, seemed equally harsh.  I get out of the theater and run to catch another film at a different theater a few blocks away. I'm already 15 minutes late for the film. A man with a child stops me.  He asks me for money for food for his children.  It's hard to say no. I had given him money  when I had seen him last.  I remember the kids in the film who were too proud to beg and no one helped them, and I was sad.  I was just as harsh as the people in the film, as I was late for my film and didn't want to scrounge through my purse for change.    Kanikosen was a Japanese film about crab fishermen in the 1920s and their cruel task master on the boat. It was a strong film about how they tried to take control of their lives and their fate.  I come home after that film.  One of Hubby's favorite reality shows is about crab fishing off the Alaska coast.  I don't know which he likes better.  Crab fishing or DayStar evangelical network on Saturday mornings.

I had to hitchhike into Jerusalem on Saturday morning and, fortunately, my driver was a nice young man, recently engaged to a non-Jewish Peruvian woman. He drove well and bemoaned the fact that it will be a royal pain in the ass for his fiancee to convert in this country. .



I began the day with a French Film, Barbe Blue (Bluebeard). Bluebeard was a beautiful film that took place both in the 1950s and 18th century, with scenes switching back and forth. In the end the young girl has Bluebeard's head on the plate. I love clever women.

I meet a friend in the lounge.  She is seeing twice as many films as I am - and also is seeing them alone.  She said that this festival is spiritual because things are happening to her that are the continuation of the movies we are seeing.  I relate to her what happened to me with the film I saw on Friday and the beggar who came to me right after the film ended.  Is this because the festival is in Jerusalem or do things like this happen in Cannes too?

The next film I saw was The Infidel - a British comedy about a Moslem family, the man of the house from Pakistani extraction whose son is engaged to a woman whose stepfather is an Al-Qaida type.  The father finds out he was born a Jew.  Hysterically funny film, and it was great to laugh with the entire audience.  I found that even sitting in theaters alone, I can still laugh out loud and not be embarrassed about this.  My kids ask me if it's not "fadichot" (embarrassing) to sit my myself, and I tell them no.  I think they're in awe about this.  On Sunday I went for my annual mammogran and sit next to a Moslem woman who is covered from head to toe.  I look for a pen and out pops the ticket to the movie The Infidel.  She looks at the ticket and I'm so amused thinking what a thing to pop out of my purse at this moment.  Maybe that's what I am?  Maybe that's what she thinks of me?  Infidel?

The next film, Tuesday After Christmas was a Romanian film and the only film I didn't enjoy.  Scenes dragged on much too long and I was bored.  The last film of that day was Please Give, a funny movie about a young  New York family and their old neighbor.  They bought her place, but can't renovate until she dies. The movie had some great scenes and I loved the daughter's character crying to her friend about her hippie mother who wanted to "fix the world and who brought home a homeless person to give him a shower in their house and he made a dump on the floor."  To my kids, I'm like the same kind of "mom who wants to fix the world but isn't it hopeless attitude" and by me bringing home Arabs - this  is nearly akin to bringing in a homeless person and the little upstarts should be grateful that at least "my" guests know how to use a toilet.

Un Ange de la Mer was a French film about a kid whose depressed father tells him that he will kill himself.  Up until then, the kid was a normal kid, but afterwards, he was obsessed with watching his father, then couldn't speak.properly..and became half mad like his dad

Friday I saw Korkoran, a great French film about Gypsies in 1943, and about how they just wanted their freedom above all, even though they were told they had to stay put for their own safety.  The French townsfolk consisted of some who wanted to rid France of "their vermin" and the mayor who tried to save the 15-member Gypsy family from the Nazis.

Saturday I saw Crazy Heart, a film with Jeff Bridges and Me Too, a Spanish film about a man with Down's Syndrome who falls in love with a "regular" woman.  I nearly cried when another Down's Syndrome couple fell in love and the 24 year old woman explains to her friends that "he's my soul.  He's my soul"  It made me think of a Down's Syndrome guy who always had a bunch of flowers in his hand.  When he saw me, he'd give me one of them and a hug.  I haven't seen him in months and wonder how he is.

The Double Hour was an Italian suspense film.  Really good.  I tried to convince my family they would like it but they "poo poo'd" foreign films, telling me they know they're boring.  Stupid people. The last film - a French flick called Un Poison Violent was a story about a family living in a small French village, whose life centered around their Parish church and the priest, while the daughter was beginning to have these lustful feelings for one of the boys in the village and didn't know whether she should take communion (or is it "have" communion?).  One scene I believe the priest is in love with one of his parisioners, but won't show it or won't allow it to happen.  He cries himself to sleep at night.

This afternoon I went to an interfaith meeting in Beit Jala.  Some of my favorite people were there including someone I have a bigger-than-slight crush on.  There are young women from Italy, France, US, and India.  I love the whole scene.  It's relaxed and the headache I had at the beginning disappeared.  The Man is telling everyone to wait until I finish eating.  I tell them don't bother, I'm never finished eating.  Everyone laughs and then we go on to discuss why Jerusalem is holy in our three religions.  Afterwards, the Man gives me a hug and tells the crowd he's so happy to see me. That I'm his soul friend.  He repeats the word "soul" again.  And I nearly cry.

Jerusalem Film Festival

I don't know how many years I've been doing this, but it's been years. The same friend and I start off by seeing the open-air opening flick on Thursday night at Sultan's Pool and then spend the weekend together - all Friday/Saturday together, then we see separate movies during the week, and compare notes.

Thursday's opening movie was called "A Matter of Size", an Israeli movie about overweight men who are frustrated with their weight loss groups and find themselves happily reinvented as Sumo Wrestlers, getting the respect they want, instead of the scorn and ridicule they experienced before. It was a comedy-drama, which we both enjoyed.

We could have done without the speeches before the film was screened. It seems that the speeches are getting longer each year. I think we suffered through 1 1/2 hours of speeches, but never mind. Also, every year there were fireworks, and this year there wasn't. Looks like the Cinemateque in toning down on expenses this year.

Friday I saw a Yiddish film called Bar Mitzvah, with Boris Thomashefsky. I vaguely remember my folks talking about his films. It was nostalgic - a world no longer, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the Yiddish. I even learned a few new words, like "he's talking gibberish" - "gibberish" was "katchke loshon" (duck talk). I thought the wicked second wife resembled Madonna and Boris resembled a bearded Robert DeNiro.

Kanchivaram was the other film I saw about Indian silk weavers in the 1940s. Interesting to learn about the culture between the feudal system - the wealthy "lord" and his poor workers, and touching story about how a man stole silk threads over years in order to make his daughter a silk wedding dress, as he promised at her birth.

Saturday I saw Paraiso Travel, a Colombian movie about two illegal immigrants in New York City. Also very good. The director, Simon Brand was there and spoke a bit at the beginning (and end?), and I thought he looks young enough to be my son. How depressing.

After we saw a Thai movie called Nymph - very slow moving, and it reminded me a bit of the Blair Witch project. Same feel.

The last movie I saw that day was Young at Heart - one of my favorites at the festival - about seniors in their 70s-90s singing punk rock, hard rock, pop and doing it so well. I laughed at the scenes of the videos they did - Staying Alive, I Wanna Be Sedated, Road to Nowhere. Moving film. I wish the chorus would come to Israel. I'd definitely go see them.

Sunday I saw Dancing with Tears in Our Eyes about the history of the nighclub scene in Israel. When you're tired and there are no English subtitles and it's a late movie...it was a bit of a strain, as I kept falling asleep in my chair. Not that the chair was so comfortable, but I had hoped for more footage instead of all the interviews.

Tuesday, I saw Abu Ali about a Sufi director of the Acre Theater company who attempts to direct a play about the Third Temple.

Then a documentary on Sayed Kashua, which was also one of my favorites at the festival. He is also one of my favorite writers. Fortunately, one of my co-workers was able to introduce us because he lives in her building, and when I found that out, I asked for an intro. She introduced us before the film began and I was all like "isn't it worth being so aggravated for all the fame it's bringing you?" He smiled, shook my hand and then I told him after the show that - we're kindred spirits, we fit in nowhere, just like the Arabs believe he's a collaborator with Jews and Jews view him with suspicion, I often feel I'm in the same boat because I live in Maaleh Adumim and hold interfaith meetings. It's hard not fitting in, not being made of the same mold as the rest of your people. He told me that he feels sorry for me. My favorite writer feels sorry for me. I was so flattered getting sympathy from him.

I spoke to the director of his film at the after-party plus some of the actors/people involved with his show Arab Labor and the atmosphere was happy, easy-going, none of this kind of snobbishness one sometimes feels at these festivals.

Friday - the last two films I saw was a French Lebanese film - Melodrama Habibi, a pretty good film about a man who had one hit song many years back in Lebanon who came back from France to sing his song. The Khamsa - a very good French movie about a gypsy boy who is half gypsy, half Algerian and who wears his Khamsa necklace for good luck.

Until next year....