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Good Family

Valley of Tears


            Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) is a Mossad agent, ruthless and efficient in killing Palestinian agents the opening moments of the film show such a killing in Istanbul. Early in the film he comes home to discover that his wife has committed suicide, which naturally unnerves him.His Mossad chief Menachem (Gideon Shemer) tells him that his next assignment will be different to what he has been doing recently; there is a former Nazi officer, Himmelmann, who has been on their list for a long time. They dont know where he is, and he is now elderly; but his granddaughter lives on a kibbutz in Israel, and his grandson is going to visit. He has asked for a guide through the Israeli tourist agency and Eyal is to take on that role to see what he can find out.He meets the young man, Axel (Knut Berger), at the airport and the job seems to involve chauffeuring him around in general. Eyal drives him to the kibbutz and they meet up with the granddaughter, Pia (Caroline Peters). There isnt much to do at the kibbutz but tonight there is folk dancing, which Pia and Axel indulge in. Pia seems to take to Eyal but he says he isnt allowed to dance with clients we assume that he is still mourning his wife, of course.Eyal has bugged Pias room, and he listens in to private conversations between Axel and her; it becomes obvious that the old Nazi is still alive, and that the family are in touch with him, but the details of where he is are still not expressed.Eyal drives Axel around the tourist sites, and they get along well, but it gradually emerges that Axel is gay and relatively open about it. He is also open minded about the political situation, but Eyal is totally embittered against the Palestinians. To reinforce his motives, we hear on the radio every day that another bomb has exploded, killing Israeli civilians. Eyal expresses his hatred for Palestinians and Axel doesnt entirely understand.One of the tourist trips involves swimming in the Dead Sea, and as the place is deserted they do so naked; after a discussion about circumcision the conversation moves on to gay relationships, and it is obvious Axel is suggesting something, but Eyal is sure he is straight and doesnt pick up the suggestions although we feel he seems to be more interested in the topic than he is admitting to himself. On this and other trips together the two men seem to be revealing more and more of their private secrets to one another, and it is Eyal who has more trouble reconciling himself to his own truths.Eyal is getting more and more worked up about the state of his life, and he starts to get angry with his boss; he thinks that wasting time on geriatric Nazis is not a priority they will die soon anyway and that there are more immediate jobs he could be doing. Axel is returning to Germany, and gives Eyal a business card telling him to look him up if ever he is in Berlin, but Eyal says that is pretty unlikely; he gives the last disk of the recorded dialogue between Axel and Pia to his boss, saying he has not bothered to listen to it, and that the whole Nazi dimension is a waste of time.When the boss listens to the disk, it becomes obvious that a family birthday celebration is being planned in Berlin, and it may well be that the old man will be there. So Eyal is given air tickets to go to Berlin forthwith, which he does. He meets up with Axel, who is surprised, and he wonders if Eyals latent gay dimension is a motivation.In a café later, we suddenly see that Eyals boss Menachem is sitting nearby; Eyal is surprised by this but in a short dialogue in Hebrew, he tells Eyal to pull himself together and get on with the assassination of the old man. They then pretend to Axel that this was just a chance meeting. It is obvious that Eyals commitment to this has been very weak.They have a snack and go to a gay club, where Eyal asks questions about the mechanics of gay sex, but he again refuses any direct involvement. They are leaving by the U-Bahn when some drag queen friends of Axel emerge from a train. They are obviously very good friends, but when they go on, some skinheads attack them, and Eyal more or less single-handedly beats the skinheads up, very convincingly, and pulls a gun, and tells them to clear off in faultless German. Axel is startled by the gun, and by the German language ability, an Eyal explains that his family were of German origin but that it was a taboo topic at home because of involvement in the war, but he nonetheless picked the language up. This doesnt sound entirely convincing but Axel accepts it, and finally Eyal is invited to the family birthday party.He goes along, and everyone is there, except the old man and then he finally appears (played by Ernest Lenart). He is very sick and is attended by a nurse and has a mobile drip with him. Eyal now has even more serious doubts about whether he wants to go through with the job.While Eyal is agonising about it, we now focus on Axel. We realise that he is a very modern German, not burdened by the politics of World War 2. He has looked through Eyals papers and discovered the briefing information on the old man. Evidently disgusted by his grandfathers deeds, he decides to take matters into his own hands and goes to the mans room and turns off the life support system, killing him. He goes to see Eyal and in an emotional conversation Eyal says that his wife killed herself because everywhere Eyal goes he brings death we didnt know until now that she had given that reason in her suicide note. Until now Eyal had played the emotionless hard man, but now he breaks down and cries on Axels sympathetic shoulder.
    

Walk on Water


            Ben (Lior Ashkenazi, Walk on Water) has always affectionately entertained his son Elis (Yuval Shevakh) mischievous behavior. Their profound connection seems secure as Eli approaches his tumultuous teenager years. But when the police arrest Ben under suspicion of bribery, Eli has to face the possibility that his father is morally fallible. Ravids film about the conflict between disillusionment and faith delivers a touching story without any simple answers.
    

Eli & Ben

Karaoke

Foxtrot

Footnote

Late Marriage

Yossi

Hit & Run

The Dune


            Three children are playing hide-and-seek in the woods. One of the girls hides in a cupboard in an abandoned house and is kidnapped by an unknown person. Dror (Rotem Keinan), a school teacher, is suspected of the crime and is arrested by the police. He is taken to an abandoned building where he is beaten by Micki (Lior Ashkenazi) and his colleagues, to try and elicit a confession. Unbeknownst to the police, a teenager witnesses the whole thing and films it on his mobile phone, which he later uploads to YouTube.An anonymous tip leads the police to a clearing in the woods, where they find a girl's body tied to a chair. She has been sexually assaulted and decapitated. The victim's father, Gidi (Tzahi Grad), arrives at the crime scene and has to be held back by the officers. Micki is taken off the case and it is given to his colleague, Rami (Menashe Noy).When Police Commissioner Tsvika (Dvir Benedek) discovers the YouTube video, he is forced to fire Micki, on the understanding that it's temporary and he is unofficially authorised to investigate Dror. Gidi has plans of his own and follows and photographs Dror wherever he goes. He also buys an abandoned property in a remote and undesirable area of town for the purpose of abducting Dror and torturing him in order to extract a confession. We see him installing a chair equipped with belt ties and various tools that can be used for torture in the dingy basement.Dror takes his dog for a walk in the park. Micki follows him and tasers the dog and Dror runs away. Micki gives chase and Dror manages to lose him in a warren of alleyways, but Micki spots him again, corners him and tasers him. He bundles him into the boot of his car and takes him into the woods where he forces Dror to dig a hole. Gidi has followed them and he kidnaps both Micki and Dror and takes them to his remote house. Gidi explains to Micki that he plans to inflict the same torture on Dror as Dror inflicted on his dead daughter. Both men take turns torturing Dror, although Micki is less enthusiastic than Gidi. When it gets too much for Micki and he tries to stop Gidi, Gidi knocks him out, gags him and handcuffs him to a beam to keep him out of the way.The torture doesn't go smoothly, due to several interruptions. Gidi receives a phone call from his mother, who insists she wants to visit, so Gidi feigns illness to deter her. Then the timer for the drugged cake that Gidi intends to feed to Dror goes off, just as he's about to pull out Dror's toenails. Finally, Gidi's father, Yoram (Doval'e Glickman), turns up with soup, made by Gidi's mother, because he's "ill". The prisoners are struggling with their bonds and make noise, which Yoram hears. Gidi tries to say it's nothing, but he's forced to go down to the basement and re-bolt Dror's chair to the floor. Yoram has followed Gidi and Gidi explains what he's doing. Yoram is more than happy to help Gidi to torture Dror and discover the location of his dead granddaughter's head.When they are briefly alone, Micki, who finds a rusty nail on the floor, asks Dror to lie about the location of the girl's head to buy them time to escape. Dror is reluctant, but after Yoram burns him with a blow-torch, he gives Gidi a very specific location to find his daughter's head. Gidi then leaves Yoram in charge of the prisoners while he goes to dig for his daughter's head. Yoram's wife calls to remind him to take his medication, so Yoram goes in search of something to eat. He finds the drugged cake in the fridge and eats a slice, which causes him to collapse in a deep stupor. Micki takes this opportunity to free himself from his handcuffs, but he refuses to free Dror.He leaves the house and borrows a phone from a passing Arab and calls the police department, who tell him that his daughter is missing. He decides that Dror must have abducted his daughter before he was kidnapped and runs back to the house. Meanwhile, having found nothing at the location given by Dror, Gidi returns to the house and starts cutting off Dror's head with a hacksaw. Micki stops Gide and asks Dror where his daughter is, but Dror dies before he can reply.In the final scene, police officer Rami, who is investigating the case, is shown inspecting Dror's house for any clues. He does not find anything and leaves the house. Micki's daughter is shown lying unconscious on a bed in a tiny room behind a false wall.
    

Big Bad Wolves


            "HAGIGA The Story of Israeli Cinema" is a milestone 10 part documentary series that challenges the way one thinks about the history of Israeli cinema. Combining hundreds of interviews captured over two years with rare archival footage from behind the cameras, the series follows Israeli cinema from the sixties up to these days, investigates the key figures of Israeli cinema and their films.
    

Lior Ashkenazi

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