Avanti Popolo

Avanti Popolo; war drama / road movie, Israel, 1986; D: Rafi Bukai, S: Salim Dau, Suhel Haddad, Tuvia Gelber, Danny Segev

The last day of the Six-Day War. After they buried a dead companion and killed another one for wanting to continue to fight, two Egyptian soldiers, Haled and Gassan, walk by foot across the Sinai desert to reach the Suez canal. Along their way, they pass by a deserted Egyptian outpost and reach a UN Jeep with a dead UN observer in it, where they find whiskey. A British reporter arrives with Israeli soldiers, picks up Haled and Gassan in his van, but immediately throws them out after Gassan throws up on him. Haled is able to turn on the UN Jeep, but it gets stuck in the sand. The two get captured by Israeli soldiers who bring them along, but the next morning, the Israelis accidentaly walk into a minefield and die. Another group of Israeli soldiers shows up and starts chasing Haled and Gassan. Haled is shot first, while Gassan is shot at the Suez canal, as Egyptian soldiers exchange fire with Israeli soldiers.

A rare movie about the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, "Avanti Popolo" is unusal since it actually depicts the story shown from the perspective of two Egyptian soldiers, Haled and Gassan, and not from the Israeli perspective. The Egyptian soldiers were thus given a humane dimension, almost as three-dimensional characters. The episodic story is problematic, though, as it is structured as a road movie where they walk by foot across Sinai, and thus feels somewhat disjointed and random overall. Filmed in aesthetic locations with several good frames of sand dunes and moutains in the Sinai desert, "Avanti Popolo" is still more inspired cinematography-wise than narrative-wise, as it lacks a tighter narrative with a goal. One of the best episodes is when the Egyptian soldiers arrive at a Jeep with a dead UN observer, and Gassan, a struggling actor, finally opens up as the viewers discover a lot about him, whether it is his comment about the Swedish UN observer ("Even dead they look better than us!") or the irony of his first theater role ("I play a Jew! Shylock from the Merchant of Venice!"). Surprisingly, Israeli soldiers are depicted in worse light than the Egyptian protagonists, especially in the dark ending where a IDF unit just spots a wounded Israeli soldier and immediately starts shooting and chasing after Haled and Gassan, not even trying to listen to them that they were just helping the wounded IDF soldier who stumbled upon a minefield. The movie created the feeling of randomness and chaos of war, yet it still feels it needed a better and different storyframing than the one we got.

Grade:++

Saint Clara

Saint Clara; fantasy comedy, Israel, 1996; D: Ari Folman, Ori Sivan, S: Lucy Dubinchik, Halil Elohev, Yigal Naor, Johnny Peterson

Golda Meir school. Principal Tissona and his assistant Zvi are shocked that the entire class recieved a perfect 100% score at a test, and thus interogate students about this. They are unaware this is the work of student Clara (13) who is clairvoyant and can see the future. Students Tikel (13) and Rozy (13) are both in love with Clara, and thus argue. Clara proves her powers when she gives Tikel's dad a forecast of the lottery numbers, who thinks he won 4 million shekels, yet Clara's dad gave the info about the number to 300 other people from the factory, which greatly diminished the reward. Allegedly, Clara will lose her powers if she falls in love. She predicts an earthquake, which causes people to flee from the city. Alone in the streets, Tikel and Clara go see a movie in the theater, and as they kiss an earthquake strikes.

The feature length debut film by director Ari Folman (excellent "Waltz with Bashir"), who co-directed it with Ori Sivan, fantasy tween comedy "Saint Clara" is one of those movies that set-up a great premise, but then don't know what to do with it and get lost in meandering, isolated episodes which lead nowhere, yet is saved by an endearingly quirky sense for humor and stylish tone. The main problem is that the clairvoyant title heroine Clara (very good Lucy Dubinchik) is bizarrely underused, to the point that she is absent for almost half of the film and thus almost feels like a supporting character, and the narrative has no clear goal that leads it. However, there are numerous funny scenes, ideas and characters that keep "Saint Clara" consistently fresh. For instance, the dialogue between the students observing a seismographic station ("When there's an earthquake, the scientists are really happy. The seismograph draws Marilyn Monroe naked, and they determine the size of the quake by the size of her tits"); the way one of Clara's family members shows how to cut a cake into seven equal pieces (he uses a knife to cut it into eight slices, then takes one and throws it away out of the frame by saying: "Stalin", leaving only seven pieces); students riding on a bronze statue of Golda Meir by dragging it across the school hall; or the surreal scene of the students sitting on a couch in the middle of a swamp. The characters are so sympathetic that one wishes this was an even better film with a tighter storyline, yet it is still fun to watch it, as it symbolically depicts the tribulations of growing up.

Grade:++