Nadav Lapid‘s talent as a director and scriptwriter is visible in the excellent scenes that open and conclude his movie ‘Synonyms‘ (‘Milim Nirdafot‘ in Hebrew) Which received the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Yoav, the film’s hero, an Israeli young man fleeing from his country, begins his journey in Paris nude and with no nothing that belongs to him, as at his birth after being robbed of his bag and clothes in the apartment where he spent the first night. At the end, we see him banging with his fists and then trying in vain to break a door that never opens, behind which is hiding his French friend, and perhaps the world he dreamed of becoming part of, a world that also rejects him. It is obvious that director Nadav Lapid likes symbols and his film is loaded with them, although not all of them are successful in the same way.
‘Synonyms‘ is not a movie that tries to be enjoyed. From this point of view I would compare Nadav Lapid with Yorgos Lanthimos, another director who does not hesitate to shock his viewers in each of his films, creating uncomfortable symbols and situations that make many viewers agitate in their chairs or even leave the cinema theaters before the end of the projections. From the point of view of the Israelis, young people like Yoav, who are leaving to other countries are not exotic characters at all. Thousands of Israelis try every year their chance in the big world. Most of them, however, do it without the hatred of Nadav Lapid’s hero, keeping contact with their country, families and with their identity and mother tongue. After all, no one can escape from the star under which we are born. Not even Yoav, who can leave Israel, may try to give up his mother tongue, but not his personal history and his mentality. Even the main metaphor of the film, that of an identity change by the complete renunciation of Hebrew is borrowed from the Zionist myth of the East European pioneers, who a century ago quit the yiddish spoken by their parents to adopt a the new language and a new cultural identity in Palestine that was to become the State of Israel in 1948. The film is equally critical of France. His French friends seem unable to give Yoav a moral support beyond the material aspects, and the institutions that try to educate immigrants in the values of French democracy and laicity seem to lack the necessary cultural tact and instrumentation, resorting to sterile, almost caricatural methods. However, the guilt of non-adjustment is ultimately personal. Yoav comes to France and tries to learn its language with a dictionary, but he is not ready to assimilate its culture and mentality. The scene of the concert is eloquent, it is also the moment when the dimensions of the gap become clear. Lapid’s Yoav is an extreme exception, both as an Israeli and as an immigrant in France. Failure is only his own, it is a personal failure. However, because of the way the movie is made, I am afraid that many of its viewers will miss this.
What I liked. I have already mentioned the symbolism of some of the scenes. Tom Mercier‘s acting performance is sensational, despite being a debutante. The actor has charisma and personality, and Yoav’s role fits him well. A star is born. The agile editing, sometimes too nervous, gives a sense of hysterical dynamics, suited to the atmosphere and the main character. What I liked less. The approach is wry, there is no detachment, no dose of humor. All the Israeli secondary characters are grotesquely and schematically presented, almost like negative stereotypes. The only exception is Yoav’s father, and the few seconds the two meet create one of the rare moments of empathy in the film. I confess that I did not understand the role of the group of Israelis in black suits, characters who actually completely disappear halfway through the movie. Who are they or what they mean? Are they real characters or fruit of Yoav’s imagination and nightmares? ‘Synonyms‘ could open up a very interesting discussion about cultural and linguistic identity, about the possibility of physically and spiritually fleeing from the country where you were born, about the hopes and the realities of being accepted in a new country. The negativism and the rigidity of the director’s approach are making the debate difficult, and I’m interested if there have been or if there will be such open debates around the film in Israel or in the Diaspora. To use a specific English expression, Nadav Lapid‘s ‘Synonyms‘ risk being actually ‘false friends’. This important, promising and disturbing movie might be liked by some or rejected by others but not for the right reasons and even not for the reasons intended by its authors.
