Midnight in Tel Aviv (2 Night – Israel, 2010)

Posted on September 17, 2012 by admin

Israeli film makers like playing with confined spaces. A couple of years ago first-time director Samuel Maoz was skillfully confining in Lebanon the drama of young men caught up in the cruelness and absurdity of the war as they participate in and watch the fight and fear for their lives and dreams from within a tank. Now another first-time director Roi Werner has the two heroes of his film watch the Big City (Tel Aviv may not be that impressive in numbers but it is for Israel the closest Israelis can get to the big cosmopolitan metropolis of the world) from within a car wandering endlessly at night in search of a parking spot. Israelis will confirm that it is not that unrealistic at all to have a full relationship develop and break while looking for a parking spot in Tel Aviv.

 

source http://www.edb.co.il/title/t0027452/

 

The name of the film has a double sense – it can mean ‘two people in the night’ and it can mean ‘2 o’clock’ the hour when things start happening in the film. In  Woody Allen‘s wonderful Midnight in Paris magic happens after midnight. This is not the case with Tel Aviv, if magic had happened the two heroes who met in a disco bar would have found a parking place and consumed their one night stand without letting the story happen and us see them wondering through a desert and rather ugly space of a few blocks in the center of the city. The whole world of the film is the way the relation develops between the young woman who plays the un-inhibited but does not really seem to be able to avoid the greatest fear of all – becoming emotionally involved – and the young man who seems to be the dullest man a woman has ever met, but gives the feeling that he hides a secret in his soul and not only in the trunk of his car.  This could be a pure sexual relation, and the two characters do not even have names in the film, or are interested about each other names, in the good tradition started by Last Tango in Paris.  There is almost no sex in this film, just a lot of talk about sex, and the feeling is that if they would have done it the story and the film would have had no reason to be. The making and breaking of the relation between the two is the thing.

 

(video source werneroi)

 

Such films rely to a large extent on actors, and the two two young actors do a fine job. Keren Berger is at her best, the typical Israeli Girl (or one of the types), lovely, verbose, fragile – it’s hard not to like her character. Yaron Brovinsky who also participated in the writing of the script together with the director is the Guy, his character is apparently harder to crack, but the revelation towards the final of the movie will throw him in a different light (which makes sense completely).  A few well known Israeli actors (Keren Mor, Dir Benedek) among them support the film with short appearances. They are the characters that may be making of Tel Aviv a different city than the dull landscape that is only a background here, but this would be a different type of fabric than the two-characters anti-romantic story that makes this agreeable movie.

 

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Happy 5773!

Posted on September 16, 2012 by admin

source http://www.stratfordcollege.ie/blog/post/rosh/

 

5773 years ago the world was created (and it will not end when the Mayans stop counting!). In the tradition of The Catcher in the Sand here are some of the best pieces of music and humor created around or about the holiday that I found recently on the Internet. Enjoy!

 

(video source Technion)

 

First comes a dance of the robots created by students and researchers at the Technion in Haifa.

 

(video source einpratfountainheads)

 

The Fountainheads in Ein Prat launched a new parody dedicated to the New Year.

 

(video source Maccabeats Videos)

 

The Maccabeats sent their holiday card

 

(video source aslevin)

 

The cantor Shmuel Levin performs “B’rosh Hashanna Yikatevun” by Eli Yaffe, recorded live on September 6th 2012 at the Adath Israel Congregation, Montreal

 

(video source shalomsesame)

 

The Muppets also celebrate Rosh Hashannah…

 

(video source Aish.fr)

 

… and so do rockers and rappers – here is Aish.fr in reggae style.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yuwWTttKGQ

(video source Thewhatsupband)

 

Here is arguably The World’s Greatest Jewish Rock Band; The Shlomones are back with their classic parody “Blow Shofar”.

 

To all my friends and readers of The Catcher in the Sand – A Good Year, a year of peace, good health, joy and happy events.

Shana Tova!

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Allergies in Times of War (Film: Gruber’s Journey – Radu Gabrea, 2008)

Posted on September 15, 2012 by admin

In director Radu Gabrea‘s Gruber’s Journey the Romanian cinema gets it’s first film seriously approaching the painful theme of the episodes of the Holocaust that took place in Romania between 1940 when the dictator Ion Antonescu took power (in collaboration for the first four and a half months of his regime with the extreme nationalistic Iron Guard movement) until August 1944 when the king deposed Antonescu and made Romania join the Allied for the last period of the war. One of the bloodiest episodes of this period was the pogrom and massacre of more than 13,000 Jews in the Eastern Romania town of Iasi (Yashi, Jassy) in the first days of the war. For many years the Romanian history books ignored or minimized the events, but the truth became more and more evident in the last ten years, despite efforts of Holocaust deniers who still try to hide the responsibility of the Romanian authorities of those times.

 

source http://www.artactmagazine.ro/calatoria_lui_gruber.html

 

A veteran of Romania cinema, Radu Gabrea is not at his first film dealing with sensitive events in the Romanian history. In The Beheaded Rooster (Cocosul decapitat) he described the same period but looked at the events from the perspective of the German population in Romania, part of which collaborated with the Nazis. I did not like that movie but appreciated the courage in dealing with the subject. In Gruber’s Journey Gabrea relies on very solid premises, using the memories of the Italian writer Curzio Malaparte who as a war correspondent visited the city soon after the events and mentioned them in his novel Kapput.

 

(video source igu)

 

The story in the film describes Malaparte’s arrival in the city in the first days after Romania entered the war as an ally of Nazi Germany, in June 1941. The war has started, but what bothers Malaparte is a terrible allergy that can be cured by a specialist residing in Iasi. That doctor is not easy to find however, chaos reigns, people cannot be found where they are supposed to be,  the Balkan mentality of corruption and disorder seems to be only amplified by the war, and above all the doctor happens to be a Jew. Something terrible seems to have happened to the Jews in this city, but nobody speaks open about this or when they do double-speak hides the facts, the army and the police throw responsibility one on the other. The military commander of the region will be suspended, but not for the loss of the lives of the Jews (he actually is congratulated by dictator Antonescu for the efficient handling of the events) but for allowing its soldiers to rampage through the domain of a count and destroy his wine cellar. The film which starts in a comical register where the innocent Italian writer meets the eternal Romania of playwright Caragiale’s heroes, turns into a dramatic confrontation with the horrors of crimes of war.

 

archive photo, source http://ro.wikipedia.org/

 

The team of actors does an excellent job, starting with Florin Piersic Jr. as Malaparte despite the fact that he is or looks just too young for the role, Malaparte was 42 by the time of the events described in the film. Marcel Iures has a short but memorable presence on screen as Gruber, while Claudiu Bleont and Razvan Vasilescu play the chiefs of the army and of the local prosecution office in the greatest and best tradition of Caragiale.

While the international breakthrough of the Romanian cinema was due mainly to films describing the period of ‘transition’ after the fall of the Communism, the re-evaluation of the past was never out of the interest of Romanian film makers. The exception was the Holocaust period, and this is the first good and courageous film on this subject. Hopefully other will follow.

 

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The Two Shores of the Danube

Posted on September 14, 2012 by admin

We spent four days during our vacation in the Iron Gates area. Two of the days were spent on driving tours on the Romanian and Serbian shores of the river. Here are a few impressions and photographs taken in these areas.

 

 

Our lodging place was the Steaua Dunarii (Danube Star) pension after Eselnita, on the shore of the Danube, about ten kilometers up the river from Orsova. The place is open since 2001, and is one of maybe ten or twenty such places in an area that could accomodate much more. The sitting is beautiful and we enjoyed unforgettable evenings on the balcony to the Danube, we admired the sunset and the sunrise over the river, and silence of the place. The restaurant is decent but not more, and boat trips on the Danube are offered at extra-cost.

 

 

 

 

The road on the Romanian shore spreads on more than 100 kilometers between Eselnita and Bazias, crossing the Moldova Noua area. The river bends and creates a chain of very picturesque gulfs. The water is calm and deep in an area of gorges which was once fast and dangerous, this is the result of the Iron Gates dam project built in the 60s and 70s by the Romania and former Yugoslavia. It’s an area of huge touristic potential which could rival with the lakes in Germany or North Italy or with the Balaton lake in Hungary. Unfortunately it is very little known, too little investment in hotels and tourist attraction was made, and the roads … oh, the roads … on the Romanian side the first 20-30 kilometers of shore road West of Eselnita are in the worst possible condition.

 

 

As in other places in Romania we could see on the side of the road abandoned industrial structures, the ruins of what the Communist propaganda called ‘the golden age’, remains of the process of forced industrialization of Romania during the Communist rule. Many of these industries had no real economic reason and could not resist the open market conditions after the fall of the Communism.

 

 

We also had that day our first experience of ‘eating Serbian’ on the beautiful terrace of a restaurant located in a villa in the hills near Moldova Noua. More about our culinary experiences during the trip in a future episode.

 

 

The landscape on the Serbian side where we crossed in another day is even more spectacular. The road on that side of the border is in excellent condition, it gets higher in some places which allows for spectacular views and photo opportunities. Places to sit, eat, rest, enjoy the landscape by road are much more frequent. I am sorry to say but the Serbian shore drive felt much more ‘European’ than the one of the Romanian side.

 

 

 

 

On the other hand there is very little development on this side as well. Actually the road between the crossing border point at the Iron Gates dam to Belgrade is scarcely populated, there are no more than three villages on the 50-60 kilometers we traveled near the river. Two points of interest are however very much worth a stop. One is the archeology museum that gathers the findings at Lepenski Vir site, a settlement that was covered by waters when the dam was built. The Yugoslavs created this museum in a spectacular structure near the Danube, and the remains of the civilization that was active between 5300 and 4800 BC where such preserved.

 

 

 

The other objective are the ruins of the Golubac fortress located in a strategic place on a bend of the Danube. First documented mention dates from the Middle Ages, mid 14th century, and successively the Romanian Transylvanians, Serbs, Hungarians, Turks and Austrians conquered and controlled the place. Today the highway passes under two of the porches of the fortress, the place is easily accessible and the visit is free of charge.

 

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Mayan Horror (The Ruins – Carter Smith, 2008)

Posted on September 10, 2012 by admin

I wonder if director Carter Smith and other folks involved in the making of The Ruins have seen Tarkovsky‘s Solaris. I like to believe that it’s mandatory stuff in any school of cinema but I cannot know. I am asking the question because ‘The Ruins’ is based on a very Solaris-like idea – a monstrous Thing that is alive and mimics the behavior of the human beings it comes in contact with. Here we have a horror story, so the Thing is replicating sounds before penetrating the bodies and destroying the humans from inside. We never learn why, did it feel threatened? did the four young American trespass some sacred borders? but it does not matter too much, the fact that we are in Maya country must be enough for an explanation.

 

source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963794/

 

The movie was made in the period after the Blair Witch Project conquered screens and captivated audiences (and their dollars) with the adventures of teens in a tent in an hostile environment. Suddenly everybody was making films with the same story structure, putting much more money in them, relocating in exotic places and providing variation on the theme of the monsters. This is another one of these and it does not succeed as most other failed also to generate the thrill of the first time Blair film (which incidentally I see it has dropped to a 6.3 grade in the IMDB rating).

 

(video source MoviesView)

 

Carter Smith does a reasonable job directing a team of young actors who start by looking like vacationers, then like participants in a ‘Survivor’ show and eventually assume the role of minced meed in the wheels of the horror show. The film has its good moments (a few) and its ridiculous moments (more of these) and overall will be enjoyed mostly by the aficionados of the genre. The rest of us looking for some quality will remember just the few gems. These who remind Solaris.

 

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Theater – ‘Ministers of War’ at Habima

Posted on September 9, 2012 by admin

Playwrights do not have an easy task writing about the Israeli contemporary realities. How strong and impressive you can be writing a tragedy about the Israel of today when thousands of people in the land called Holy have lost their lives or seen their destinies destroyed by wars and the conflict between Jews and Palestinians that seems to never end. What credible dramas can be written when every newsflash in Israel brings several dramas with social or human background that exceed whatever was ever written for stage or in books? How political satire can work when the daily reality brings under the lights of the political stage characters that seem to exceed in behavior, corruption, absurdity the sharpest imagination a satirical writer can have. Never and nowhere the saying that reality exceeds fiction seems to have applied better than in Israel Today (capitals intentional).

 

source http://www.nrg.co.il/online/47/ART2/383/581.html

 

Yet, the Israeli audiences love satire. The satirical shows are on the top of the TV and audio ratings. Last night the audience at Habima in Tel Aviv filled a hall with a capacity of about one thousand people, near me sat a pair of what looked like elder kibutznikim, in the row in front of a bunch of young religious people, the whole hall was a mosaic of people who came to laugh about ourselves in a play that could have been the subject of a tragedy as well as of a wild comedy. Israel is under attack from North, South and West. The war is ravaging the country taken by surprise, and the prime-minister and the members of an inept government seem busier with saving their own skins and personal real estate assets, dealing with political intrigues, and most of all, covering themselves for the inquire commission that follows inevitably all the wars of Israel since the Six Days War.

 

(video source israelnews)

 

While the text written by popular entertainer and radio show host Shay Goldstein provides many moments of good comedy, the opportunity of asking any more serious questions – to the politicians, to ourselves – is missed. The performance at Habima is a good comedy show but a very superficial satire, which says nothing new or different of what was said in shows like A Wonderful Country (Eretz Neederet) on TV or Shay and Dror on the radio. Moti Kirshenbaum is an experienced TV producer and host, and does a good job in directing a team of actors which has the popular comedy actor Eli Yatzpan (as the prime-minister) in the center. However, the result is not much different than a ‘Yatzpan show’ and the good feeling results from remembering the laughs and the fact that for an hour and a half the reality on the stage seemed to be more dangerous and absurd than the reality in our lives.

 

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On the Transalpina Road

Posted on September 8, 2012 by admin

 

 

I am bringing in this episode of my travel notes a few pictures taken on the spectacular alpine highway Transalpina which we crossed in the last day of our motor trip. The road crosses the  Parang mountains and allowing for a scenic drive from the city of Sebes in the North to the resort of Ranca south of the mountains. The map is available at

http://www.transalpina.biz/harta.html

The road competes with the Transfagarasan alpine road which is located about 100 km East for the title of the most beautiful alpine road in Romania. Its origins are said be traced back to the 4th century BC, this being one of the roads used by the Roman legions to reach the defense posts in the Northern area of the Empire.  Used for the many centuries to come only by shepherds crossing the mountains with their sheep. It was only during the First World War that the German army built a stone road, then when both sides of the Carpathians became part of Romania it was modernized during the 1930s (the reign of king Carol the 2nd). During the last few years it was asphalted and is in very good shape, yet it is not yet officially open as the sides of the road are not all in place. It is safe to look on the Internet Web site for the state of the road and for the weather forecast before planing a trip

 

 

 

 

We crossed it from North (the lake at Obarsia Lotrului) to South (the resort of Ranca). After climbing on the alpine plateau the landscape becomes spectacular, endless rows of mountains, and the road that at some points seems to climb to the sky. We have visited alpine roads in Austria and Switzerland and we can witness that the Transalpina proudly competes with them. The Internet side quotes 2145 as the highest point on the road, although the GPS on our car claimed that we reached 2170m at some point.

 

 

 

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Friday Night Live (Film: Date Night – Tina Fey, 2010)

Posted on September 7, 2012 by admin

Shawn Levy directed a remake of the Pink Panter as well as a couple of Nights at the Museum, so having a good laugh is something that we should almost take for granted when going to a movie made by him. There are some good comic scenes in Date Night, which succeeds to develop from a romantic family comedy to a crazy gangster movie with a welcome dose of natural and good feeling.

 

source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1279935/

 

The Fosters are Tina Fey and Steve Carell, they are a couple of nice people like everybody else, living in the Manhattan suburb which is also known as the state of New Jersey like everybody else, doing reasonably good economically like everybody else, with noisy kids like everybody else, going through the teens marriage years crisis like everybody else. They plan to go a night our in the city like everybody else but then they steal somebody else’s table in a restaurant, they are confused with another couple who made some very bad guys angry, and their date night will become something else than they have ever lived through.

 

(video source FoxMovies)

 

Two days after I have seen the film I do not remember much of the action, and I certainly will remember even less in a month. I think that I will remember why I liked the film and I entered the good feeling mood – it was not necessarily because of the laughs which were far from my hysteria level, but because of the likeable characters created by Steve Carell and especially by Tina Fey. I knew that nothing really bad can happen to them in such a movie despite the whole Manhattan going wild and crazy around them and police and gangsters trying to kill them every minute at every step. Yet, I cared for them, I shared their like-everybody-else wishes and fears, and they looked to me like familiar neighbors by the time this reasonable Friday night comedy was over.

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The Synagogue That Was

Posted on September 6, 2012 by admin

Here is an odd and sad story – the story of a place of worship, the story of a place that witnessed the history of a Jewish community and was the symbol, the place of gathering and the center of life of this community. A place which was sold as a piece of real estate and its purpose changed. Instead of becoming a place of remembering it will soon forget all.

 

 

This was the second day of our trip in Western Romania. After having spent the night in Baile Herculane and then traveled for a few hours in the wild and picturesque valley of the river Cerna we descended to Turnu Severin.We stopped first at the walls of the medieval city which are also the head of the bridge built by Apolodor of Damascus in the years 103-105 when the Roman army entered Dacia to win the second and final war and conquer this territory. Then we went to the center of the city which looks quite nice and was quite and empty in that summer Sunday afternoon. There we noticed the building, a red bricks structure with a silhouette that looked familiar.

 

 

Without any doubt the building was a synagogue. Or better said it was once a synagogue, because now the firm outside indicated the present destination of the building – a notary office. What we were seeing was the former synagogue built in the center of the city in the second half of the 19th century by the Jewish community of Turnu Severin. The community was not too big in numbers, a mix of about 140 Ashkenazi and Sephardic families, but probably a wealthy and flourishing community as they could afford buying in this location and building the Jewish place of prayer in the heart of the city. I could find no information about the building on the Internet, not the exact year of its building, not about the architect and builder, not about the benefactors who contributed. I do not know if there are any archives of the community, there are certainly Jews who were born here, or descendants of the Jews born here living all over the world, they could have contributed with information, photographs, memorabilia, they could have helped to make this place a museum if there is no longer a viable community for praying, but the fate of the place was to be different.

 

 

I could actually find more information on the Internet about the transaction that settled the fate of the synagogue building. The case made some waves a few years ago. If the information I found is accurate, the building was sold by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania (FCER) in 2006 for the amount of 57,000 Euros (the price of an average apartment in Bucharest) to a family of notaries who opened here their office. Here are two articles (in Romanian) describing the story and the history.

 

http://www.mehedinti.djc.ro/ObiectiveDetalii.aspx?ID=993

http://www.divers.ro/actualitate_ro?wid=37455&func=viewSubmission&sid=1665

 

We could not enter the building, the offices were closed on Sunday. Near the synagogue a big Christian Orthodox cathedral is being built, actually it looks close to completion, and it dwarfs the much modest (in size) synagogue. The building looks like it’s being maintained in good conditions, but soon the external architectonic details still existing that keep trace of the original purpose of the building may disappear, and with them the last memories of another Jewish community in Eastern Europe which is gone forever.

 

 

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Despite What Critics Say (Film: Unknown – Liam Neeson, 2011)

Posted on September 3, 2012 by admin

I usually rely on the opinions of exquisite movie critics like Robert Ebert or James Berardinelli and it seldom or almost never happens to be in disagreement with one, not to speak both of them. Luckily I usually read critics opinions after seeing the film and so I did in this case as well, because I may have chosen to skip one of the most intelligent and well written action films I have seen lately. The story is not only well written and the pace of the action kept me on my edge for the whole duration of the film, but it also has logic and is credible, so I dare say that the two great critics got it wrong when they gave the two stars out of four treatment to the film.

 

source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401152/

 

The first sequences of the film introduce the viewers in the American-Has-Trouble-In-European-Big-City genre, with Berlin playing the role usually assumed by Paris. The hero is a biotechnology expert which in the first few minutes of the film loses his suitcase, his wife, and his identity. The losing of the identity is soon to be turned into the kind of situation where not only the hero starts to doubt his own self, but also the viewers start doubting what they have seen, or searching for the hidden signification. Another man has taken his identity, his wife seems to have become part of the plot or maybe she is forced to be one, a lot of people try to kill him, and whoever helps him is in mortal danger and does not survive much time on the screen. All this happens in a frozen Berlin in winter, and is filmed with a blueish filter that creates a metallic light atmosphere that just increases the anxiety. Acting is exact, Liam Neeson will not get another Oscar nomination for this role but he succeeds to make us care for him and so does Diane Kruger in the role of the woman who helps him, to find her life blown-up together with her flat in the action.

 

(video source movieclips)

 

This is the fourth film of director Jaume Collet-Serra, whose first film, a piece of horror name House of Wax I also enjoyed. He proves here that he understands the rules of the genre and can make well-paced and efficient movies. The quality of the film comes however first of all from the quality of the script – Unknown is simply brilliantly written, the terrorism and Cold War sequels intrigue reminding Le Carre’s novels provides a logical explanation which put for me every event in place in a story of lost memory and identity that could belong to the Bourne series. My preferred critics were wrong this time.

 

About Roger Ebert’s extraordinary fight with cancer you can read here.

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