Laughter rules at 13th Israeli Film Festival
More fun in the Holy Land?
You might think so, scoping the entries to this year’s Israeli Film Festival, which opened Tuesday night at Greenbelt 3 Cinema with an appearance by Israel Ambassador to the Philippines H.E. Effie Ben Matityau and the showing of a comedy, Hunting Elephants, starring (among others) Patrick Stewart.
This 13th edition of the festival opened with a promise to “present laughter from the Holy Land,” and judging from the audience reaction, laughter was forthcoming. In addition to Hunting Elephants, a comedy crime caper featuring senior bank robbers, most of the picks this year are rom-coms or oddball comedies, with the exception of The Matchmaker, about a Holocaust survivor’s friendship with a teenage boy.
Opening remarks were made by Ambassador Matityau, with words from Film Development Council of the Philippines chairman Briccio Santos, and a closing Q&A by Adam Michael Levene, Deputy Chief of Mission for the Embassy of Israel, who will also be guest of honor when the festival heads to Baguio on Nov. 11.
“This year marks the partnership between the Embassy of Israel and the Film Development Council of the Philippines, in presenting the Israeli Film Festival through our Film Cultural Exchange Program. FDCP is honored to be a partner in strengthening our shared history,” Santos said during the festival opening.
Santos said the Philippines and Israel have a bond dating back to Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon opening the door to over 1,000 Jewish refugees before World War II. The Philippines also voted in favor of the United Nations Resolution that established the state of Israel.
He added that Israel has “honored us” by erecting an open-door monument in Tel Aviv acknowledging the country’s to the Jewish people.
The festival’s focus on light cinematic fare reflects a shift from “serious” themes. “As with cinema, (humor) is a universal language: humor has the power to reveal commonalities and shared humanity among different cultures,” Santos added.
“There were those early years of our cinema when everything was patriotic and very serious,” Israeli Ambassador Matityau added. “Slowly we started to find a sense of humor. In the best tradition of the Jewish society, we are well-known as a people who have a history of introspective and critical humor.”
Indeed, humor is one of the greatest gifts of the Jewish people to the world. It’s also a sign of the Israeli people’s abiding strength — the ability to laugh in the face of hardship and struggle.
The comedy Hunting Elephants plays up this gritty strength, relying on a winning cast. Sasson Gabai plays Eliyahu, the crusty old grandfather of Jonathan (Gil Blank), a moody teen whose father dies of a heart attack while guarding a Jerusalem bank at night. Because he had his son along with him to keep company, the bank’s insurance won’t pay off Jonathan’s mom, Dorit (Yael Abecassis). So she starts dating bank manager Dedi (Moshe Ivgy), while Jonathan fumes and starts crafting a bank robbery scheme with senior citizens in a local rest home.
This sounds a bit like those heist films starring Clint Eastwood or Michael Douglas as feisty seniors lured into pulling “one more job.” Has Israel gone Hollywood? Well, you wouldn’t think so, judging from the grim tales of Israeli conflict that usually make the festival rounds. But though director Reshef Levi’s comedy has the look of an indie film, it’s loaded with stock old people and Viagra jokes, not to mention a bit of old-fashioned sexism and a joke about “retards.” Still, the cast makes it all amusing, with Gabai in particular showing gifted comic timing. (There’s a scene where he dances with his comatose wife in his arms that’s impossible to describe.) Patrick Stewart (who reportedly replaced Monty Python member John Cleese in the cast) turns up as “Lord” Michael Simpson, a flailing British actor who wants in on the robbery scheme. Many hijinks ensue.
In addition to Hunting Elephants, on Nov. 5 the festival featured Alex is Lovesick, a 1986 comedy about a 13-year-old who grows attached to his aunt; Total Love, a 2000 love triangle comedy; Up the Wrong Tree, about a man who returns to Israel and literally climbs a tree to make a social statement; Nov. 6 offered The Big Dig, a 1969 comedy about a canal digger and Israeli bureaucracy; Pick a Card, a warm comedy that won six Israeli Academy Awards including Best Picture in 1997; and A Matter of Size from 2010, about an overweight man who ends up working as a sumo wrestler in a Japanese restaurant in Israel.
For the first time this year, the Israeli Film Festival will then travel outside Manila, starting with Baguio, then to Iloilo, and down south to Davao and Zamboanga in the FDCP cinematheques later this month. Admission is free.
Quirky subjects are often the way forward for international cinema, and the Israeli Film Festival, based on the film synopses, definitely delivers that. Expect some social commentary sprinkled atop the entries — like the allusions to troubled British-Israel relations in Hunting Elephants — but nothing too heavy.
Surely the presence of bomb squad PNP men outside the Greenbelt Cinemas during the appearance of the Israel Ambassador says a lot about the need for hilarity among troubled times. The Film Festival certainly delivers on that promise.
