Ha-Asonot Shel Nina

A lonely, bookish 14 year old boy, Nadav is infatuated with his Aunt Nina, his mother's younger sister. When her husband is killed in a terrorist attack only a couple of months after their marriage, Nina is devastated. Fearing the worst, Nadav is sent by his mother to be with her. So begins 'the happiest days of his life, so far.'

The problem is that Nadav, in his innocence and naivety, believes this to be the beginning of something much more. Nina herself is oblivious to this, seeing only a loving nephew and young boy. Seen through Nadav's eyes, we witness the slightly bizarre reality of the world around him – Nina coming to terms with her grief, his parents dealing with their separation and his father's illness, his best friend (Menachem – a much older man) dealing with his budding relationship with Galina.

While under-stated, Nina's Tragedies is a genuine mix of comedy, pathos, anger and sadness (but thankfully avoiding melodramatic pitfalls), has fully-rounded characters, a tight script and a uniformly excellent cast. It is understandable why the film won eleven Israeli Film Awards in 2003 (including Best Feature).

Israeli Writer/director Savi Gavison has a unique concept about the discoveries and joys and travails of coming of age and he makes this tender little story come to life with simplicity and honesty and a large dose of human kindness. The multiple awards this movie garnered are very well deserved: perhaps now that it is readily available on DVD will hopefully bring it to the attention of a larger audience.

HA-ASONOT SHEL NINA (NINA'S TRAGEDIES) takes us on a journey with teenager Nadav (a quietly superb Aviv Elkabeth) whose home life is stressful: his mother Alona (Anat Waxman) has thrown out her husband and takes on lovers like flies to flypaper. Alona's sister Nina (the luminously beautiful Ayelet Zurer) - Nadav's aunt - has relationship troubles with her intended husband Haimon (Yoram Hattab) yet finally marries him, much to the dissatisfaction of Nadav who is privately in love with Nina (his first sensation of attraction and lust). Nadav has a friend Menahem (Dov Navon) with whom he spends his time as a peeping tom, watching the vagaries of his mother and Nina. After Nina's marriage, Haimon is killed in the ongoing violence in Tel Aviv and Nina is destroyed emotionally: Alona sends the more than willing Nadav to live with his aunt, an act that only enforces his passion for Nina. But soon Nina begins to see visions of Haimon running naked in the streets (!) and is befriended by a handsome Avinoam (Alon Abutbul) whose girlfriend Lihi (Osnat Fishman) is a successful artist. Nina and Avinoam have a passionate but brief affair (causing deep bitterness in the jealous Nadav), but the affair is ended when Nina 'sees' the face/ghost of Haimon at her window and Nina longs for the return of Haimon, knowing now that she is pregnant with his child. Navad engages Menahem to help him resolve Nina's new tragedy, but Menahem has found a girlfriend Galina (Jenya Dodina) and has his own 'tragedy' when Galina returns to her ex-lover Alex (Yoram Hattab again!), and it is Menahem's tragedy that leads Navad to the discovery that the very strange Alex is the 'ghost' of Haimon that Nina has been seeing. The story becomes more complex as Nina delivers her baby, Navad's father is taken back by his mother when his diagnosis of cancer is made known, and the mixed set of tragedies intertwine for an ending that surprises everyone.

If the plot sounds convoluted, it is! But the fact that the story is from the obsessively maintained diary of Nadav makes it all connect in the loveliest of ways. The cast is outstanding and the tenor of the times in Tel Aviv is accurately and realistically portrayed and for once allows the constant conflict to be simply background for a story that deals with equally traumatic personal issues - at least in the eyes of an impressionable young teenager. There is much wisdom here, but there is also considerable fine entertainment in a film that sees human foibles as comic as they are tragic. Watching NINA'S TRAGEDIES is a complete pleasure. In Hebrew with English subtitles. Grady Harp

"Nina's Tragedies (Ha-Asonot Shel Nina)" is a charming mix of genres.

It's a coming of age story of a young teen boy (played very age appropriately with wide-eyed naiveté by Aviv Elkabeth) who acutely observes his dysfunctional family and their friends without really comprehending their adult emotions.

It's also a sophisticated urban comedy about artists and intellectuals that we are more used to seeing in movies set in Paris or New York, including a fashion designer, a book editor, photographer, sculptor and nudist performance artist.

The casual fillips that make us know they live in Tel Aviv add unique ramifications, as one character is killed while serving in the Army reserves (which for non-Israelis gives the film a post-9/11 overlay) and another gets caught up in ecstatic Orthodox Judaism.

It also capitalizes on unusual twist of fate relationships, as portrayed in such movies as "Next Stop Wonderland" where we think we are watching magic realism but it turns out to be grounded in coincidence.

The boy's desperate crush on his beautiful aunt is the mechanism to link the stories, as his voyeurism becomes a metaphor for the viewer and for artists in general, almost a bit too preciously as the boy is, as in most every such film, a budding writer.

The film combines cheerfully earthy and frank sexuality with intense romantic longing, so it is a much more ironic view of grief than the Israeli film "Broken Wings (Knafayim Shvurot)" that was released in the U.S. last year. There's a long kiss that matches TV's most sensual kiss of the season in "Lost" with beautiful cinematography of temporary fulfillment. The primarily night-time cinematography is lovely.

The acting is wonderful, particularly Ayelet Zurer as the strikingly lovely aunt who has intense chemistry in contrast with the solidity of craggy-faced Alon Abutbul. Anat Waxman makes the quirky mother a real person, not a silly joke. The concluding coda seems too much wishful thinking, even if it is emotionally satisfying.

The credits are not translated into English and many of the subtitles are white on white.

I enjoyed the movie, and laughed out loud, particularly at some of the surprises, which I will not reveal here. Nadav (the boy) is the narrator, and while events in his life may play important roles, the movie really centers around Nina. At the start of the movie we learn that Nadav's father died, and that he was given Nadav's diary, which is the source of our story. The movie finishes at Nadav's father's funeral, with some degree of hope, in spite of Nina's misfortunes. Nina is unlucky in and/or makes bad choices in her relationships, along with suffering from some genuine tragedy and some misinterpreted comic coincidences. I understand why it won several awards in Israel, and would enjoy seeing it again. The movie deliberately begins and ends with the father's death and funeral as it is about beginnings, endings, life, death, despair, and hope.

One of the most common errors in film reviewing is mistaking "Realistic" with "Genuine". For example, a movie might be considered realistic because it depicts a harsh environment, poverty, crime and all the other features that are a part on any country but it will be completely not genuine because the characters are shallow, stereotypical and the plot would just too dramatic to actually occur like a 16 year old who becomes a drug baron or something (sweet 16 comes to mind as an example).

On the other hand, there are films who arre not very (or even remotely) realistic but they're genuine because their feelings and lines (in the dialogue, enough about drugs) are something we can all relate to. films that are genuine could be: Jerry Mcquire, His girl friday, Trainspotting, se7en etc. I am happy to say that Nina's tragedies, although nowhere near as good as those masterpieces, definitely earns its place in the Genuine hall of fame.

The movie, in short, tells the tale of Nadav, a 14 year old kid who reminisces 6 months of his life, beginning from the death of his aunt's husband up to his father's death. His aunt, Nina ( portrayed by Ayelet Zorer, in my opinion, the Israeli equivalent of Maryl Streep)is shattered and Nadav is asked by his mother to move in with her and Nadav who is secretly infatuated with Nina, is more than happy to be a shoulder to cry on.

Unfortunately, Nadav's already complex plot thickens even more when his father who became a fanatic religious a couple of years ago, falls ill with cancer and wants to reconcile with his estranged son while into Nina's life enters an eccentric photographer (Alon Aboutboul). Nadav is about to face every demon he has in the next six months and in the worst possible time- when he reaches puberty.

The movie is magnificent, it boasts great acting and script but most of all, it has those little scenes that are seemingly insignificant but they are the scenes that make us want to rent it again and again.

8.5 out of 10 in my FilmOmeter. The best Israeli film of 2003, so far.