‘Ahed’s TV Series’ Review: A Filmmaker’s Suffering in the Desert


“Ahed’s Serial” is Israeli director Nadav Lapid’s fourth feature film. The first three – “Police” (2014), “Kindergarten Teacher” (2015) and “Synonyms” (2019) – are social criticism studies in different forms. By focusing on characters whose personal suffering reflects the national crisis, they target what Lapid sees as the political, moral, and spiritual shortcomings of modern Israel.

Although the plots are the same, this movie is different. It’s a howl of anger. The howler isn’t exactly Lapid, but someone who could easily be confused with him: a filmmaker in his 40s working on a project called “Ahed’s Knee.” There are other biographical details that connect this man, known simply as Y (and played by the extremely charismatic Avshalom Pollak), to his creator. He is in close contact with his mother, who worked with him on his films and is dying of lung cancer. Lapid’s mother, Era, who died of the disease in 2018, was her regular editor.

The plot of “Ahed’s Drama” really stems from a professional conflict that happened to Lapid. (Y’s project is based on a more public event: a widely reported conflict Between Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi and Israeli soldiers In 2017.) There is no doubt that this is a personal film in several senses. However, this does not mean that the character is simply the spokesperson for the author; One of the things that gives this film its raw, unbalanced energy is the ambiguity of the distance between them.

Y has a habit of standing very close. This becomes evident as soon as he meets Yahalom (Nur Fibak), a young woman who is organizing the screening of one of his films. A big fan of his work, and also an employee of the Ministry of Culture, commitments that turned out to be completely incompatible. The sudden, frustrating intensity that arises between them is both a sign and a misdirection. Will this become the story of a troubled artist finding a new muse, or perhaps a parable of a #MeToo male right going crazy?

Both seem plausible, but what happened is more disturbing. Y’s film is screened in a public library in a village in Arava, a sparsely populated, simply beautiful desert region in southern Israel. Y from Tel Aviv (like Lapid) had never been there before. The strangeness of the landscape and the searing warmth may add to his emotionally volatile status, but what pushes him to the brink is a document Yahalom asks him to sign. This is a list of approved topics for post-screening talk and a promise to stick with them.

Is this a bureaucratic formality or a sign of creeping fascism? Yahalom’s claim seems to confirm Y’s darkest suspicions about Israel’s drifting away from democracy and cultural vitality, a pessimistic, passionate pessimism that will be familiar to anyone who has watched Lapid’s previous films. Unlike other politically minded Israeli filmmakers, he does not focus on the Palestinian conflict or the simmering culture war between Israel’s secular and religious citizens. When these issues come to the fore, they emerge as symptoms of a larger, more elusive discomfort with the sacrificing of Jewish ethical norms, political ideals, and intellectual traditions on the altars of power and materialism.

Even though Lapid’s and Y’s allegiances are clearly on the left, there is something deeply conservative about this stance. The difference between the two directors may be that while Lapid unleashes his despair by making a movie with beautiful, hallucinatory shots and bits of hilarious absurdity from Arava, Y throws a tantrum, alienates his audience, and humiliates his biggest fan.

Or: being drawn to the art of the real filmmaker, the fictional counterpart is brave enough to create a scene, hurt some feelings, and possibly risk his own comfort and career. Nobody wants to be taken as a hero. On a dating app during the preview, Y brags about a potential travel mate for which he won an award at the Berlin Film Festival. Where is this “The Synonyms” awarded with the Golden Bear. Privileges granted to artists can always be held against their art, as can their personalities. It is possible to reach the end of “Ahed’s Drama” with only one question: What’s wrong with this man? The answer is complex, because it’s not just one man’s problem.

Ahed’s Knee
Not rated. Hebrew, with subtitles. Duration: 1 hour 49 minutes. In movie theaters.



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