Monday, August 20, 2007

Filmmaker out of the water

Today I woke up relatively early and continued reading the essays for the Israeli Cinema exam. Yesterday most of them were fascinating, but today much less. I was tired, first of all, and the printer had problems so i had to read from the screen, which I hate. After 5 hours I was exhausted, so I talked to a friend and we said to meet for a movie.

"Meduzot" (in Hebrew: Jellyfish) is an israeli film that won an award at the last Cannes film Festival. It was a great pride for Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret, the directors couple, which is for them the first film.

I have a few things to say about this film and i will make a list out of it, cause i'm in no state to write very well now. Too much screen time I guess. So here are my impressions from "Meduzot" (Jellyfish):

1. It's great to see an Israeli film that is not about or around war, heroism, terror, and is not a family drama.
2. It's great that an Israeli film has interesting visuals.
3. The way the tel aviv flats/hotel/street are presented in a way that is both realistic and cinematic. Accurate and rough at the same time.
4. Some stories were more interesting than others. The main story is not the most interesting. The story of the newly married couple and the other woman was more interesting.
5. The way the camera focuses on the faces of the lead actress (Batya) and the married woman was not flattering. They both have very strong expressions that almost never change, and this creates kind of a boredom for the viewer, or worse - uneasiness. One lady next to me said 60 minutes into the film: "She's so ugly!". Later I talked to my friend about it and we both felt the same, but it's not ugliness exactly, it's just the way the camera tried to be too poetic on those faces that meant to be common.
6. I enjoyed the film and I'm happy it was created.
7. The kid is sweet. But when she screamed I thought it was dumb.
8. some things were not reliable. And unnecessary.
9. It feels now (3 hours after I watched the film) that this film will not stay in my head for long.
10. The film is shallow.
11. Being abstract sometimes, and too metaphoric at times, AND tell the stories of many characters don't work well here. the result is .

Back to film studies and Israeli cinema in the eighties...

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