Israeli early viewing: ‘Hemda’ – written and directed by Shemi Zahrin. The film will be released in the commercial network of cinemas in Israel, starting on June 6.
‘Hemda’ is only the 8th feature film made in almost 30 years of career by director and screenwriter Shemi Zarhin. Almost all of his films depict complex relationships and unconventional families, where generations clash and ally in surprising ways. The worlds of his films are those of everyday Israeli reality, with people working hard and struggling with life’s problems, seeking but seldom finding peace or fulfillment. The casts of his films bring together some of Israel’s most talented and popular actors and give them the opportunity for consistent roles with deep dilemmas and emotions. This is also the case in ‘Hemda’, which I had the opportunity to see at a preview, two weeks before the official release of the film.
Right from the scene that opens the film we learn the ages of the principal characters that make up the couple that is at the center of the story. Sassi is 73 years old, Efi is 50 years old. For him their relartionship is the second marriage, he has children and grandchildren. The two live in the Israeli countryside and work from dawn to sunset, in at least two places each, and in addition, at night, in a kitchen of theirs making pastries that they deliver to different places the next day. I will not reveal the reasons for this intense pace of life because the script is built in such a way that family and character relationships are revealed gradually and only towards the end we get the full picture. I will avoid spoilers, respecting the secrets of the screenwriters and will only say that the bet of this narrative structure in which the relationships and the past of the heroes are revealed gradually, like in a puzzle, is risky. As a viewer, I had the feeling for a large part of the film that the heroes live intensely without a clear motivation and willingly enter into artificial crises. By the time the (logical) explanations came, it was already a bit late, and sequences that could have aroused emotion had passed. Returning to the story in the film: the lives of the heroes are disturbed by the appearance of Sassi’s nephew, his son’s son who lives in Belgium. Another generation, another style, other emotions under the same roof. For her part, Efi is dealing with a mistake from her past and the reappearance of a much younger man with whom she had a relationship. Will the relationship between the two last?
The answer is yes, and the secret lies in the notion of ‘hemda’ that appears in the film’s title. I am very curious if upon release the producers will provide a different title for the English version and what it will be. The word comes from the Hebrew of the Bible. The approximate translation would be ‘passion’ with a merely positive connotation and can be applied to the love between a man and a woman, but also to human relationships in general, to the attraction to beauty or even to patriotic feelings. Sassi, Efi and other characters in the film live and share this feeling. The couple of well-known and beloved actors Sasson Gabay and Assi Levy never disappoints. The entire cast is exceptional, and writer-director Shemi Zarhin is generous with the actors, giving them roles with complex emotions, intense dialogues, and close-ups where emotions cannot be faked. I also appreciated the honest and discreet approach to the problem of relationships at older ages, a subject too rarely addressed in films outside of the comic register. For Israeli viewers, ‘Hemda’ offers the opportunity of a return to everyday life beyond the acute crises of recent reality, and for foreign viewers a look at life in authentic Israel, at times when it is not forced to be in a state of war.