Set in Tel Aviv, New Israeli Film ‘Jellyfish’ Shines With Virtue, Veracity

HollywoodChicago.com — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:25:33 -0700

CHICAGO – It has been a banner year so far for the Israeli film industry. Following the American debuts of “The Band’s Visit” and “Beaufort,” we now have the stunningly composed and heart-rending “Jellyfish”.

Unwinding like a Tel Aviv version of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia” – but warmer – “Jellyfish” follows several lives steeped in moral crisis and offers redemption like an elusive brass ring.

Nikol Leidman as the mysterious girl who emerges from the sea in “Jellyfish,” which is a film by Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen.
Photo credit: Zeitgeist Films

An underachieving wedding waitress with career and mother issues searches for answers while staring at the sea. An unusual 5-year-old child approaches her in a bathing suit and life-preserver ring.

Since the little girl seems separated from her parents and circumstances, she adopts the other lost soul as her temporary guardian.

Meanwhile, a wedding that the waitress was working at has gone wrong after the reception. The bride suffers a broken leg, which forces honeymoon plans to be moved to a tacky Tel Aviv hotel nearby.

Anxious and bored, the groom begins a friendship with a woman – a resident of the hotel – who seems to be a writer.

Almost as soon as she has appeared, the little seaside girl has disappeared. This generates a tailspin for the waitress that results in the loss of her job, a tense reconnection with her estranged father and a horrendous accident in the street.

Noa Knoller as Keren in “Jellyfish,” which is a film by Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen.
Photo credit: Zeitgeist Films

All these characters engage and disengage often during the same meeting interval. There’s a sense of destiny within each of the new relationships. This begs for an emotional cure from a collective buried sorrow.

The city of Tel Aviv is used as an atmosphere that affects all the proceedings. The class distinctions are prominently displayed as well as the fatalistic nature of life during wartime.

The city has been a target of terrorism in the last 10 years. The long Mediterranean coastline is a well-used setting for the interaction of memory and magical realism. As well, the waters attempt to wash away the internal sins.

The soul of the film is a story that maximizes each character’s journey in a lovely cinema vérité framework.

RELATED IMAGE GALLERY
View our full “Jellyfish” image gallery.

RELATED READING
Read more film reviews from critic Patrick McDonald.

Writer and director Shira Geffen along with co-director Etgar Keret discover lyrical qualities in the simple exposition of recollections, childhood and even a tacky advertising poster.

These moments are mesmerizing and surprising especially in combination with the narrative conclusions. Geffen’s script is a poignant intersection of the regrettable past and the transitions that must occur to move on.

Whether the newlyweds realize their commonality, the writer finds her words or the waitress forgives herself, it’s all dependent on energies swirling within each of them. These are powers that can either save or condemn them. In this 60th-year celebration of Israel, this film feels like the whole country.

“Jellyfish” opened in Chicago on May 23, 2008 at the Music Box Theatre.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Academy Award-Nominated ‘Beaufort’ Ponders Question of Why We Fight

HollywoodChicago.com — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:35:48 -0700

CHICAGO – History eludes us. It’s what happens when we’re busy making other plans. In his new film “Beaufort,” director Joseph Cedar turns his lens toward the history and misery of a Mideastern soldier’s outpost eight years ago that was both defended and attacked while highlighting the human element that has to endure when protecting the territory of warfare.

“Beaufort”.
Photo credit: IMDb

Beaufort is an ancient castle area at the southern border of Lebanon. It has been an energy center for conflict and has been occupied by various armies for more than 1,000 years.

The film is set in the year 2000 when Beaufort is occupied by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), which has held the position since the 1982 war in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah – the Islamic, anti-Israeli paramilitary organization – is bearing down on the outpost heavily with mortar shelling and guerilla tactics in anticipation of a planned IDF withdrawal.

The film is essentially the story of the last Israeli soldiers assigned to the outpost with all the drudgery, bureaucracy and morality of their so-called “duty”.

Oshri Cohen (left) “Beaufort”.
Photo credit: IMDb

Cedar deftly uses the soldier’s characters as representations of the conflicted nature of war. The leader, Lizaz (Oshri Cohen), is all about duty despite the crumbling walls and constant barrage.

Bomb expert Ziv (Ohad Knoller) embodies the horror of the moment in his shocking appearance. Koris (Itay Tiran) is the morality who constantly frets and comments on the futility of the assignment.

The dream-like quality of the cinematography recalls Terrence Malick’s World War II film “The Thin Red Line” (1998). The claustrophobic barracks with their maze-like hallways bring to mind Wolfgang Petersen’s closed-quartered U-boat in “Das Boot” (1981).

Both characteristics add to the empathetic experience of the desperate last days of war and the hard-knock lives of its warriors.

Ohad Knoller in “Beaufort”.
Photo credit: IMDb

The heavily armored soldiers also have a “spaceman on an alien world” feeling as the barracks have a modular, futuristic look. The squawks of the radio recall the void of communication to distant planets.

This “stranger in a strange land” sense makes the participants less connected and further strips their human element.

The unseen enemy is the monster stalking the men at every turn while at the same time fighting the other unseen enemy: their own paranoia.

“Beaufort” is a psychological war film that’s trying to answer the question of why we fight. What does territory mean when it becomes a chess match with human beings used as the pawns? The soldiers of Beaufort attempt to answer these questions and live through it simultaneously.

How many deaths have to happen in war – psychological and mortal – until we know it’s too many?

“Beaufort” opens in Chicago on March 28, 2008 exclusively at the Music Box Theatre, which is located at 3733 N. Southport Ave. The Israeli film was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film of the year in 2008.

Click here for our full, high-resolution “Beaufort” image gallery!

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com