Foxtrot

It was back to Israel for Foxtrot, but this time for was a Jewish Israeli film, Like Wajib it was a family drama, but unlike Wajib it features Jewish Israelis and we're talking a funeral rather than a wedding.

Foxtrot centres on a middle-aged Israeli (Michael) who lives with his wife  (Dafna) and two young adult children (Jonathon and Alma) in a high-rise apartment in Tel Aviv. Jonathon is currently serving in the IDF and is stationed in the north of Israel. The film opens with a knock on the apartment door and it's two soldiers, announcing that Jonathon has been killed. They're coy about the details, and suggest that viewing the body is unnecessary and undesirable. They act with impressive efficiency - you get a sense of the IDF being an unstoppable well-oiled machine

So we view the family's different reactions to the news, get to meet a few other relatives and get to know people a bit better. Michael's mother is a holocaust survivor who's losing her memory, Michael served in the IDF himself.

Then the first plot twist - the soldiers are back, announcing they got things wrong, and although a Jonathon Feldman has died, it isn't their son. So now there are different kinds of angst to go through. Initially Michael and Alma are fighting, later they find some  mutual consolation in their joint confusion and anger.

Then it's off to the north of Israel and seeing Jonathon's  day-to-day existence. He and three fellow solider live in a container and monitor an isolated checkpoint. There's very little going on but there's some drama when they're inspecting a carful of young Arabs and they mistake a beer can for a grenade and open fire, killing all the occupants. In an almost surreal scene, the ever-efficient IDF sends a massive truck with a bulldozer on the back and the car and everyone in it is buried
 forthwith.And then we have a second plot twist which you can see for yourself if you go to the film.

One of Foxtrot's main messages is that serving in the IDF is bad for you - mentally and physically. You get caught up in. it, and it changes you forever. A sub-message is that surviving the holocaust blights your relationships. And while these are not the cheeriest messages, it was a pretty engrossing watch. Foxtrot was directed by Samuel Moaz who directed Lebanon (set inside an Israeli tank in the 1982 war with Lebanon) which we have also seen,

Anne's rating 3.5/5

Wajib- The Wedding Invitation

Like "The Reports on Sarah and Saleem", Wajib is a film that features Arab Israelis. A family story set in Nazareth, it uses the familiar scenario of adult child visiting the family home to illustrate the life of Arab citizens in Israel.

Shadi is an Arab Israeli architect who lives in Italy. His father (Abu Shadi) and his sister live in Nazareth, which is where he grew up. His sister is about to get married, and Shadi is home for the wedding. Their mother lives in America having left her husband and Israel when Shadi and his sister were children.

Most of the  film takes place over the course of a day. Shadi and his father are driving around Nazareth hand-delivering wedding invitations. As result we get to meet many of their family and friends and see inside many homes. Shadi and Abu Shadi have lots of opportunity to talk while they're in the car. As is often the case when you spend time with family, they find each other both irritating and endearing. Shadi is trying to give up smoking, and Abu Shadi, who has heart trouble and is supposed to be giving up, shows no interest in doing so. We learn that Shadi's mother leaving her husband continues to be an embarrassment, and we learn that Shadi was sent to Italy when he got into some political trouble when he was younger. He's much more anti-Israeli than his Dad ,and is outraged when he discovers his father is proposing to invite one of his Jewish friends to the wedding. We learn that Arab tradition is still important, and that delivering wedding invitations in Nazareth is  a parking nightmare and that you'll be forced to drink enough coffee to keep you awake for a week.

Wajib is a pretty gentle film that's illustrative without packing much of an emotional punch. The characters are like-able and they have a relatively pleasant lifestyle compared to their counterparts in the West Bank and Gaza but there are constraints  to that lifestyle

Saleh Bakri who is an Israeli-born Arab himself, rejects the Israeli label, preferring to describe himself as a Palestinian - you can read about that.here.  Saleh has been described as the sexiest man in Israel and if you're looking for a reason to go and see the film, an extended opportunity to admire him is a valid one. There's a nice  inter-generational contrast between Shadi the son who wears a floral shirt and his hair in a topknot and Abu Shadi who wears muted colours and a flat cap.

Anne's rating 2.5/5