Offbeat Israel: Mishloach Manot for Hard Times
By Nathan Jeffay
The animation director of Waltz With Bashir has released a short movie intended to rally opinion against the Gaza blockade.
Yoni Goodman’s new film, “Closed Zone,” consists of animation and real footage from Gaza, and addresses the lack of freedom of movement for Gazans. In it, a young boy pursues a flying bird — a symbol of freedom — but is blocked wherever he goes by a large hand.
The hand stops him leaving Gaza by boat. Elsewhere, it turns him back to the course of fire. At the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the hand is shrouded in an Egyptian flag and is joined by another hand, adorned with an Israeli flag.
Goodman produced the film for Gisha — Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, an Israeli nonprofit organization. He started the film before the recent Gaza campaign, but reworked parts after the campaign.
With the festival of Purim coming up on Tuesday, Israelis are out at the supermarkets in force, buying all sorts of goodies to put in mishloach manot, traditional Purim food baskets given to friends and family.
In recent years, the bar for mishloach manot has been raised significantly. Once a homemade cake and a bar of chocolate did the trick; these days, some Israelis opt instead for gourmet goodies with large price tags.
In view of the global economic crisis and the rising cost of food, some of the country’s leading Sephardi rabbis have issued a ruling urging people to take a more frugal approach. They are telling people to “restrain from wastefulness” and suggesting that Israelis shun candies for foods with nutritional value and a long shelf life.
In a country of people who love to share information, it seems there are two groups of people you can rely on to protect your secrets — Catholic priests and strip-club owners.
The nation has become gripped by the question of whether outgoing head of the Israeli navy, Eliezer Marom, had a lap dance in a Tel Aviv club. The club owner is rumored to have a video that would provide a definitive answer but is refusing to part with it. This story will fill you in on the saga.
‘Bashir’ Team Noshing Away Their Sorrows
By Nathan Guttman
One thing is for sure: The Israeli creators of “Waltz with Bashir” are no sore losers.
Director Ari Folman and his crew of producers and animators managed to keep their spirits up even after hearing that the Oscar for best foreign language film went to “Departures” from Japan. This was not an easy task given the higher-then-ever expectations back home in Israel, where a whole country went wild over the possibility of a first Oscar for the Jewish state.
It was even more difficult for two members of the crew, who watched the event at the viewing dinner hosted by Children Uniting Nations — a charity founded by Daphna Ziman, a prominent member of the Los Angeles Jewish community. Animators Osnat Wald and Neta Holzer were surrounded by reporters and TV crews, all trying to get their first reaction after watching the opening of the envelope on the large screen. “We’re disappointed, but it’s not that bad” they repeated over and over again, until all of the reporters got their share.
Relief came only an hour later, when director Ari Folman and the rest of the crew returned from the Kodak Theater and joined the crowd at the event, which took place at the Beverly Hilton. “It looks as if you guys are taking the news worse than I did,” Folman joked with the reporters blocking his way.
Art director David Polonsky and the director of animation, Yoni Goodman came out of the limousine smiling. “They had great food over there, really,” Goodman summed up his Oscar experience and Polonsky added: “and a real wonderful bar, too. That really helps deal with the sorrow.”
And there is also some good news for the Bashir team. Driving back from the Oscars to the hotel, the group already began discussing their next project. It’s going to be a science-fiction film. Animated, of course. Work is slated to begin in two months.
February 22, 2009, 11:50pm
And the Oscar Didn't Go to 'Bashir'
By Gabrielle Birkner
The Israeli film “Waltz With Bashir” — Ari Folman’s animated documentary about the 1982 Lebanon War — was favored to win the Oscar for best foreign language film. But it was beat out for the award Sunday by the Japanese contender “Departures,” about an unemployed classical musician who takes a job in a mortuary.
And so Israel’s Oscar scorecard remains: 8 nominations over 44 years, 0 wins.
In other Oscar news, the reported email campaign against awarding Kate Winslet the best leading actress Oscar for her role in the Holocaust film “The Reader” apparently didn’t work.
In Slate, the critic Ron Rosenbaum recently called “The Reader” a film “that asks us to empathize with an unrepentant mass murderer” and deemed it the “Worst Holocaust Film Ever Made.”
But Winslet beat out Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Angelina Jolie, and Melissa Leo in the category for her portrayal of an illiterate Nazi war criminal, responsible for the deaths of 300 women.
February 22, 2009, 7:06pm
In Advance of the Oscars, 'Bashir' Attacked on Two Fronts
By Nathan Guttman
“Waltz with Bashir” may be the favorite for winning the Oscar in the Foreign Language Film category, but back home in Israel, the film’s director, Ari Folman, is being slammed from both sides of the political map.
First, it was the right-wing pundits who argued that the film — criticizing Israel’s actions in the 1982 Lebanon War — was not patriotic enough and should not represent the country at the Academy Awards. Then, over the weekend, the Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy took on Folman from the left, calling the film “infuriating, disturbing, outrageous and deceptive.” Why? Because “Waltz With Bashir,” according to Levy, does no more than clean the Israeli conscience.
But for Folman, this criticism actually came at the right time. On Saturday, during a panel discussion with foreign film directors, Folman quoted Levy’s critique — arguing that if he is being blasted from the right and from the left, he must be doing something right.
“I think there is a misconception in regard to how tolerant Israel is, at least toward its artists,” Folman told the crowd at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. He added that, even though his film is critical of Israel’s actions in the first war in Lebanon, it became “the darling of the establishment.”
February 20, 2009, 3:40pm
The Nation: Lieberman's Israel Undeserving of 'Bashir'
By Gabrielle Birkner
How could a populace that rates Ari Folman’s Oscar-nominated “Waltz With Bashir” the third best Israeli film of all time have voted to make the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party the nation’s third-largest faction? That is the question posed by writer and Israeli army veteran Liel Leibovitz in an essay published on The Nation’s Web site. Leibovitz suggests that, in the minds of many Israelis, waging war and making thought-provoking movies about waging war somehow balance each other out. He writes:
[F]or the most part, Israelis have become adept at using art as a mantle, a colorful cloth under which they can hide from the harrowing implications of the policies they support.
… As I stepped out of the cinema [after seeing “Waltz With Bashir”] … I muttered a silent rant, to no one in particular. Let them wage war, I thought. And let them make movies. But let them never pretend that the two have anything in common, or originate from a common mental space that is fundamentally just and contemplative and resorts to arms only when inevitable.
Israel of today is not Ari Folman’s. It is Avigdor Lieberman’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s, the country of the countless men and women crying out for revenge. As we root for “Waltz with Bashir,” if we want to truly honor that film’s message, let us never forget that. Otherwise, all we have is just a pretty animated film.
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