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‘Free Zone' marred by heavy-handed treatment
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BY: MARILYN H. KARFELD, Senior Staff Reporter
With the traditional Passover song “Chad Gadya” playing in the background, Israeli director Amos Gitai's camera lingers for what seems an interminable seven or eight minutes on the profile of Natalie Portman. She's weeping, with streaks of mascara running down her cheeks.
Slowly, it becomes clear that she's in a car, it's raining outside, and there's a glimpse of the Kotel, what Jews in the West used to call the Wailing Wall. Aha! There's symbolism afoot.
The song, with lyrics about a goat eaten by a cat, bitten by a dog, beaten by a stick, burned by fire, doused with water, is Gitai's allegory in his movie “Free Zone” for the Middle East conflict. “How long will this circle of horror last?” the song asks.
Portman plays Rebecca, an eager, naive, and vulnerable American college student in Jerusalem who is distraught over leaving her fiancé Julio, a Spanish-Israeli Jewish soldier. Julio has admitted to killing a Palestinian and raping a Palestinian woman in a refugee camp. He doesn't think it was really rape; Rebecca does.
She left New York because she felt out of place, and now she feels lost. Her future mother-in-law apparently didn't like her. While her own father is Jewish, her mother is not, and even though Rebecca became a bat mitzvah and attended synagogue in New York, in Israel she is told that she's not Jewish.
“Can we go?” Rebeccca plaintively asks. “I have to get out of this country.” The driver, Hanna, an abrasive, weary, Jewish mother of three whose husband Moshe has been injured in some sort of terrorist attack, eventually agrees to let Rebecca accompany her on an eight-hour drive to a place called the Free Zone. On the border of Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria, the Free Zone allows unfettered trade, with no customs or duties.
Hanna is on a mission to collect money from a mysterious person called the American, who owes her wounded husband $30,000 for some armored cars he sold him.
“The only thing that is sure in Israel is intifada and war,” Moshe has told Hanna. After being forced out of the Sinai when Israel gave it back to Egypt, Moshe and Hanna moved to the Negev, where they initially grew flowers for export.
The first intifada destroyed that business because their Palestinian workers could not cross the border to work. Intifada 2 kept the tourists at home, ruining a chauffeuring enterprise the couple started. But, in the never-ending violence in the Middle East, there will always be a market for armored cars.
Finally arriving at the Free Zone after dark, Hanna is outraged to learn the American is not there. Leila, whom we later learn is the American's wife, offers to take Hanna to him. But when the women arrive at a complex of Palestinian buildings and fields, the structures are on fire.
Palestinian anger has boiled over against one of their own. Rebecca ends up discussing the hostile Palestinian-Israeli situation while traversing the burnt landscape with the American, whose name we learn is Samir, a Palestinian returned to the region.
Leila, Hanna and Rebecca then set out to look for Walid, Samir's son, who has led the torching and perhaps taken Hanna and Moshe's $30,000. Driving along in Hanna's car, the women connect, but not for long, over some pop music playing on the radio.
In Gitai's story of shared loss, cultural differences, and search for common ground, he presents many interesting ideas. The road trip and border crossings serve as metaphors for the women's journey through the political minefield of rights and wrongs. The three women themselves are emblematic of the region's varied points of view. The Free Zone carries its own message of open exchange, unhindered by religion and politics, making it possible to reach a peaceful solution to an intractable problem.
But Gitai's heavy-handedness comes close to squashing the life out of his 90-minute film. The plot unfolds so slowly that we almost lose interest in these three intriguing women. Filmmaker Gitai (best-known for “Kadosh”) is fond of very long takes, shot mostly from inside the car. He uses flashbacks, appearing as confusing double and triple exposures, to reveal the characters' stories. The camera becomes an obstacle the audience must overcome.
Even the dialogue works too hard at advancing Gitai's political themes, ending up sounding more like speeches than conversation.
What rescues “Free Zone” from itself are three fine actresses, each of whom gives an absorbing performance. Despite the little that Jerusalem-born Portman has to do or say, she manages to convey great sadness and empathy. Hanna Laslo, who won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role as Hanna, avoids caricature in her portrait of the feisty, determined Israeli. As the strong, modern, compassionate Leila, Hiam Abbass recalls her poignant turn as the older sister in “Syrian Wedding.”
With such good actresses at his disposal, Gitai could have turned “Free Zone” into a much better film.
mkarfeld@cjn.org
“Free Zone” screens Sat., Dec. 9, at 7:40 p.m., and Sun., Dec. 10, at 4:15 p.m. at The Cleveland Institute of Art's Cinematheque, 11141 East Blvd.
Slowly, it becomes clear that she's in a car, it's raining outside, and there's a glimpse of the Kotel, what Jews in the West used to call the Wailing Wall. Aha! There's symbolism afoot.
The song, with lyrics about a goat eaten by a cat, bitten by a dog, beaten by a stick, burned by fire, doused with water, is Gitai's allegory in his movie “Free Zone” for the Middle East conflict. “How long will this circle of horror last?” the song asks.
Portman plays Rebecca, an eager, naive, and vulnerable American college student in Jerusalem who is distraught over leaving her fiancé Julio, a Spanish-Israeli Jewish soldier. Julio has admitted to killing a Palestinian and raping a Palestinian woman in a refugee camp. He doesn't think it was really rape; Rebecca does.
She left New York because she felt out of place, and now she feels lost. Her future mother-in-law apparently didn't like her. While her own father is Jewish, her mother is not, and even though Rebecca became a bat mitzvah and attended synagogue in New York, in Israel she is told that she's not Jewish.
“Can we go?” Rebeccca plaintively asks. “I have to get out of this country.” The driver, Hanna, an abrasive, weary, Jewish mother of three whose husband Moshe has been injured in some sort of terrorist attack, eventually agrees to let Rebecca accompany her on an eight-hour drive to a place called the Free Zone. On the border of Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria, the Free Zone allows unfettered trade, with no customs or duties.
Hanna is on a mission to collect money from a mysterious person called the American, who owes her wounded husband $30,000 for some armored cars he sold him.
“The only thing that is sure in Israel is intifada and war,” Moshe has told Hanna. After being forced out of the Sinai when Israel gave it back to Egypt, Moshe and Hanna moved to the Negev, where they initially grew flowers for export.
The first intifada destroyed that business because their Palestinian workers could not cross the border to work. Intifada 2 kept the tourists at home, ruining a chauffeuring enterprise the couple started. But, in the never-ending violence in the Middle East, there will always be a market for armored cars.
Finally arriving at the Free Zone after dark, Hanna is outraged to learn the American is not there. Leila, whom we later learn is the American's wife, offers to take Hanna to him. But when the women arrive at a complex of Palestinian buildings and fields, the structures are on fire.
Palestinian anger has boiled over against one of their own. Rebecca ends up discussing the hostile Palestinian-Israeli situation while traversing the burnt landscape with the American, whose name we learn is Samir, a Palestinian returned to the region.
Leila, Hanna and Rebecca then set out to look for Walid, Samir's son, who has led the torching and perhaps taken Hanna and Moshe's $30,000. Driving along in Hanna's car, the women connect, but not for long, over some pop music playing on the radio.
In Gitai's story of shared loss, cultural differences, and search for common ground, he presents many interesting ideas. The road trip and border crossings serve as metaphors for the women's journey through the political minefield of rights and wrongs. The three women themselves are emblematic of the region's varied points of view. The Free Zone carries its own message of open exchange, unhindered by religion and politics, making it possible to reach a peaceful solution to an intractable problem.
But Gitai's heavy-handedness comes close to squashing the life out of his 90-minute film. The plot unfolds so slowly that we almost lose interest in these three intriguing women. Filmmaker Gitai (best-known for “Kadosh”) is fond of very long takes, shot mostly from inside the car. He uses flashbacks, appearing as confusing double and triple exposures, to reveal the characters' stories. The camera becomes an obstacle the audience must overcome.
Even the dialogue works too hard at advancing Gitai's political themes, ending up sounding more like speeches than conversation.
What rescues “Free Zone” from itself are three fine actresses, each of whom gives an absorbing performance. Despite the little that Jerusalem-born Portman has to do or say, she manages to convey great sadness and empathy. Hanna Laslo, who won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role as Hanna, avoids caricature in her portrait of the feisty, determined Israeli. As the strong, modern, compassionate Leila, Hiam Abbass recalls her poignant turn as the older sister in “Syrian Wedding.”
With such good actresses at his disposal, Gitai could have turned “Free Zone” into a much better film.
mkarfeld@cjn.org
“Free Zone” screens Sat., Dec. 9, at 7:40 p.m., and Sun., Dec. 10, at 4:15 p.m. at The Cleveland Institute of Art's Cinematheque, 11141 East Blvd.
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