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Thursday September 27, 2007

Israeli films in Mill Valley touch kids, adults

by michael fox
correspondent

The bucolic burg of Mill Valley is not often listed alongside Los Angeles, New York and Miami as a hotbed of Israeli movie fans. But you’d never know it from the contingent of Israeli flicks included in this year’s Mill Valley Film Festival.

Largely through the efforts of associate programmer Janis Plotkin, the former longtime head of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, four new Israeli films are included in the 30th Mill Valley program.

Israeli films have won awards at practically every major international festival this year, pushing the country’s cinema into the spotlight. Two of those movies stop in Mill Valley ahead of their upcoming theatrical release.

“Beaufort,” a restrained war film set in the final months of Israel’s occupation of Lebanon, garnered Joseph Cedar (“Time of Favor” and “Campfire”) the Silver Bear at Berlin for Best Director. Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret’s “Meduzot” (“Jellyfish”), an evocative, elliptical view of three women searching for connection in the big city, received the Camera d’Or at Cannes for best first feature.

Their distributors requested reviews be held until they open, but there is no such restriction on Itai Lev’s “Little Heroes” or Avi Nesher’s “The Secrets.”

“Little Heroes” is a likable, universal tale of three children with uncommon initiative, determination and bravery. They embark on an ad hoc mission to save a young couple injured in an off-road car mishap, sidestepping distracted adults and facing down bullies along the way.

The unlikely trio, who live on the outskirts of Beersheva, are an adolescent boy whose father was a recent military casualty, a Russian girl who’s omitted from the existing cliques and her slightly challenged big brother.

The film, based on a short story by Eran B. Y., offers a raft of instructive and inspiring lessons for young people. Practically every character is shown to have an aptitude or skill that proves essential in the rescue, while the principle of being true to one’s instincts and ethics is upheld in almost every frame.

As an indicator of the film’s tone, the closest thing to a villain is a selfish teenage camp counselor. Although its target audience is children, and it has a decided lack of edge, “Little Heroes” is not a painful sit for adults (especially at 76 minutes), particularly after the dreck Hollywood put out this summer.

While “Little Heroes” doesn’t stretch the bounds of kids’ movies, “The Secrets” calmly broaches as many taboos as it can. An occasionally melodramatic argument for the emancipation of religious women, it draws equally on “Yentl” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Indeed, it could have been called “Chava Potter and the Yeshiva of Doom,” except for the inevitable lawsuit. Director Avi Nesher is scheduled to attend.

Naomi is a Talmud prodigy with the promise to be a great scholar and rebbe like her father. Instead, she’s lined up to marry his prize pupil and become a perfect Orthodox wife. She’s mighty strong-willed, however, and her father agrees to let her go to an all-girls yeshiva in Safed.

Naomi’s roommates range from a chubby sidekick to a new (yet still goth) frummie, with a wild card named Michelle thrown in for exotic, dramatic spice. Michelle has lived in France for several years, and her bilingualism comes in handy when she and Naomi are assigned to bring food to a terminally ill French woman, Anouk (Fanny Ardant).

Anouk gradually discloses her secret anguish, inspiring Naomi and Michelle to devise a program of healing kabbalistic rituals so she can make peace with God before she dies. Needless to say, the girls risk extreme punishment for the sins of thinking for themselves and practicing high-level Judaism without male genitalia.

Safed, like San Francisco (at least in the movies), is a mysterious catalyst that brings one’s true character and inner desires to the fore. The story goes places you likely won’t expect — and may not appreciate — and, unfortunately for Naomi, what happens in Safed does not stay in Safed.

“The Secrets” takes us into a world we rarely glimpse, and imbues its inhabitants with passion, humor and a fierce spirit. It reflects Israeli cinema’s recent knack, exemplified by such films as Eytan Fox’s “The Bubble,” for translating specifically Israeli concerns into entertaining and accessible works that can easily transcend borders.

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