The second film from Israeli
writer-director duo Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado is a brutal, yet undeniably
funny, horror-thriller and is looking to make an impact in cinemas this week (6th
December 2013). It has already caught
the attention of Quentin Tarantino who described it as “the best film of the
year”.
The film begins with a thuggish but
ultimately inept detective beating a tied-up suspect in a multiple child murder
case in the face repeatedly with a phone book.
The suspect is a weedy religious studies teacher who is accused of
kidnapping girls and removing their heads.
Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, this
brutal (yet ludicrous) interrogation is recorded by a terrified child with a mobile
phone who puts the footage online for the country to see. Due to this embarrassment, the police chief
is forced to release the suspect and suspend the detective. The detective, now working outside of the
law, manages to serendipitously team up with a vengeful parent of one of the
previous victims who has bought a house (with a basement) in the middle of
nowhere so that he can take the law into his own hands…
It is easy to see why Tarantino likes
this film, there are moments when graphic violence are punctuated with mundane
comedy (a character gets a phone call from his mother as he is attempting to
torture someone); there is a scene with pop music (Buddy Holly) juxtaposed with
off-screen violence; there is a tense scene with characters eating soup in a
kitchen whilst one of them hides a horrific scene in a basement (a la Inglorious Bastards)… The film also uses a hugely
Bernard-Herrmannesque score and contains a number of moments that made me think
of Psycho.
Yet this is not to say that the film is
an homage. There are some moments in the
film that are interesting because they are so unique to Israel / Jewish
culture.
The film is overtly about fathers and
fatherhood – characters are constantly referring to what it is like to be a
father and how hard it is to protect and raise children, yet it is also an
insight into Jewish families. (Having
been immersed for years in Jewish-American comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld,
Larry David, Bill Maher, Sarah Silverman, I don’t know whether the parents in
this film are a playful mocking of a stereotype, or an honest attempt to represent
a culture…)
This film also raises some interesting
politics: Controversial settlements in Palestine are referenced; yet a pipe of
peace is smoked between the Israeli anti-hero and an enigmatic Arab who roams
the landscape on a horse (and saves the day with an iPhone). The filmmakers could be using the old
violence-in-the-basement metaphor to make a Freudian comment about Israeli state
aggression, or they could be using the religious studies teacher / child killer
narrative to make a different comment about the role of religion in harming the
youth… or they could just be making a stylish horror b-movie that happens to be
in Israel. I imagine the answer to that
question will depend on the eye of the beholder.
The film felt very televisual at the
beginning, although it was an episode rather than a feature film, but as the plot
began to ‘thicken’ then it builds into a tense and darkly comic expression of
revenge and family. I think Tarantino
might be onto something…
The film is released through Metrodome on the 6th of December
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