Giving Happiness a Push
Movie Revie of 'Campfire'
Volume 75, Number 36
| September 8 - 14,
2005FILMCAMPFIREDirected
by Joseph CedarIn Hebrew, with
English subtitlesDistributed by Film
MovementOpens Sep.
9Village East
Cinemacourtesy
of Film MovementNew beginnings, family
and teenage trials are explored in “Campfire,” which stars Hani
Furstenburg as 15-year old Tami, and won
five Ophir Awards from the Israeli film industry, including Best Picture.
Giving Happiness a
PushIsraeli film
“Campfire” charts a family climb out of the inertia loss brought
onBy SETH J.
BOOKEYIt has been an unprecedented year
for Israeli films. “Campfire” is the seventh Israeli movie to find
itself in U.S. distribution––a real feat for Israeli cinema in
general, as most of whose films are usually only seen in the U.S. at film
festivals.Any film coming out of Israel
has to live up to a pervasive expectation that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
is going to play a part in the film (think “Wall”), or perhaps other
fraught topics such as the Holocaust (which loomed large in the other big
Israeli film of the year, “Walk on Water”). So it’s
interesting to see a film like “Campfire,” which puts the political
behind the personal, creating broader appeal for this story of a widow and her
daughters a year after her husband has
died.The film is set in 1981 in
Jerusalem. Rachel Gerlik (Michaela Eshet) has let her late husband’s
Peugeot sit inert in front of their apartment building for a year, but finally
puts an ad in the paper to sell it. She instructs her daughters to tell
prospects, “My father isn’t home,” in order to avoid being
taken advantage of as a widow.With a
year of mourning behind her, Rachel decides to let her yenta friend Shula set
her up on a blind date with Yossi (Moshe Ivgy), a 50-something virgin who has
practically first-dated everyone turned his way. Meanwhile, Rachel’s
contentious daughter Esti (Maya Maron) is sneaking boys into the apartment, or
making out with them in the building basement, while 15-year-old Tami (Hani
Furstenberg) endures sexual taunts from geeky
boys.Feeling she needs a change, Rachel
applies to be part of a right-wing Zionist group that wants to form a settlement
in the West Bank. She tries to reassure her friends, Shula and Motke, that she
can meet the group’s standards, since she is a woman alone with two
daughters. Perhaps this is why she agrees to go out with the men Shula sets her
up with. Rachel comes across as fairly static and self-absorbed, so it’s
not clear why she would leave a nice apartment to go live in a trailer in
hostile territory.During a holiday
bonfire camp-out, Tami is grabbed by one of the older boys, who has told the
younger teens, “They say no, but they wind up relenting.” The camera
doesn’t show us exactly what happens, but Tami is clearly left with a
“bad reputation.” Rachel catches wind of what’s happening, but
Motke advises her to not make a big deal about it. Tami is left alone to make a
choice between reporting her assailants or dealing with the problem with only
her own wits.Tami’s situation is
mirrored by her mother’s predicament—having married young a man she
didn’t necessarily love, Rachel is now free but unsure how to proceed with
her life. “Campfire” evokes the dilemma of women around the world
who seek to be free in societies that only take them seriously when a a man is
involved. But, much like the Peugeot in the driveway, all Rachel and her
daughters really need is a good jolt. Things start to change when Esti answers
the phone one day and finally says, “My father’s dead, so if you
want the car, you have to deal with my
mother.”Director Joseph Cedar sets
up a story that unfolds in real time under circumstances to which anyone can
relate. Furstenberg delivers a particularly strong performance, evoking both the
joys and the terrors of being a teenager. In a wonderful scene, while home
alone, she turns a pop song up really loud and does her own vampy version of
what she thinks a femme fatale should be—shades of the Tom Cruise turn two
decades ago in “Risky Business.” Her release strikes a nice
counterpoint to her silence when meeting her tormentors and her reflexive
obedience to her mother’s
requests.Cedar captures the zeitgeist of
the times in Israel, but the couple who lead the Zionist group are a stand-in
for society at large, their sexually curious son representing the naive male
notion that all women “want it,” and the settlement echoeing
Rachel’s painful year of isolation. Cedar shows his characters’
progression toward taking charge of their lives using a lot of close ups that
reveal Tami and Rachel’s emotional
awakening.Throughout the movie, Tami
says, “This year, I will be happy.” Cedar shows that achieving this
not a matter of getting past a milestone, or fitting in, but discovering that
you create your own
happiness.Campfire is also
being screened at the Manhattan Jewish Community Center, 334 Amsterdam Avenue at
76th Street through September 13. For times and tickets, call 646-505-5708 or
visit
jccmanhattan.org.
Posted: Thu - September 8, 2005 at 01:17 AM
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Published On: Jun 20, 2009 07:03 PM
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