Film review: 'Family Secrets'
A teenage girl calmly crushes up pills in order to kill her uncle, with him imbibing a seemingly lethal brew at a family gathering. The look they share as he drinks indicates a mutual understanding of what is going on.
After such an intriguing start, Nitza Gonen's "Family Secrets", which was showcased at the 15th Israel Film Festival, proceeds to unravel the circumstances, ramifications and passionate motives behind this seemingly coldhearted murder. And in the process, it keeps one's interest thanks to the appealing cast and essential mystery-story structure.
"Family Secrets" -- the kind of frustrating scenario where a character keeps mum about one very important detail of the uncle's demise, thus condemning another character to 17 years of disillusionment and inescapable guilt -- jumps back in forth in time. Most of the action takes place in Herzliya, where frisky cousins Rivi (Romi Abulafia) and Shauli (Michael Hanegbi) spend summers with their grandparents and return years later to deal with an inheritance.
While swiftly moving from mutual attraction to emotional intimacy to physical infatuation, the younger versions of Rivi and Shauli are irreverent in the games they play -- in one impromptu skit, he's a German soldier terrorizing her pretending to be Anne Frank -- and they start to believe rumors about the wartime experiences of their successful Uncle Alfred (Eli Cohen), a Holocaust survivor who may have collaborated with the enemy.
From groping to making out to secret pacts meant to last a lifetime, Rivi and Shauli represent the post-World War II generation's embracing freedom and putting aside the horrors of the past. But they are far from innocent in their willful disrespect for the generation that suffered so horribly and are sensitive to offhand remarks and auspicious slips of the tongue.
At the same time, former opera singer Alfred's dark secret is not what either Rivi or Shauli think it is, bringing in another issue -- homosexuality -- that's ultimately portrayed as far more harmful than cousins falling in love. Realistic or not, "Family Secrets" ends up with few sympathetic characters and concludes on a contrived note.
Cohen, a veteran director, is the most accomplished performer, while Abulafia and Hanegbi have the chemistry the overall film lacks.
Such touches as the ghost of Alfred haunting the adult Rivi and the flashback structure are fairly pedestrian, while the tone of the film is often distractingly uneven because of the misconceived score by Adi Cohen.
FAMILY SECRETS
Evanstone Films
Director: Nitza Gonen
Screenwriter: Sherni Zarhin
Producers: Eitan Evan, Moshe Levinson
Director of photography: Gideon Porath
Production designer: Israel Walgelernter
Editor: Danny Shik
Music: Adi Cohen
Color/stereo
Cast:
Rivi: Romi Abulafia
Shauli: Michael Hanegbi
Alfred: Eli Cohen
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
After such an intriguing start, Nitza Gonen's "Family Secrets", which was showcased at the 15th Israel Film Festival, proceeds to unravel the circumstances, ramifications and passionate motives behind this seemingly coldhearted murder. And in the process, it keeps one's interest thanks to the appealing cast and essential mystery-story structure.
"Family Secrets" -- the kind of frustrating scenario where a character keeps mum about one very important detail of the uncle's demise, thus condemning another character to 17 years of disillusionment and inescapable guilt -- jumps back in forth in time. Most of the action takes place in Herzliya, where frisky cousins Rivi (Romi Abulafia) and Shauli (Michael Hanegbi) spend summers with their grandparents and return years later to deal with an inheritance.
While swiftly moving from mutual attraction to emotional intimacy to physical infatuation, the younger versions of Rivi and Shauli are irreverent in the games they play -- in one impromptu skit, he's a German soldier terrorizing her pretending to be Anne Frank -- and they start to believe rumors about the wartime experiences of their successful Uncle Alfred (Eli Cohen), a Holocaust survivor who may have collaborated with the enemy.
From groping to making out to secret pacts meant to last a lifetime, Rivi and Shauli represent the post-World War II generation's embracing freedom and putting aside the horrors of the past. But they are far from innocent in their willful disrespect for the generation that suffered so horribly and are sensitive to offhand remarks and auspicious slips of the tongue.
At the same time, former opera singer Alfred's dark secret is not what either Rivi or Shauli think it is, bringing in another issue -- homosexuality -- that's ultimately portrayed as far more harmful than cousins falling in love. Realistic or not, "Family Secrets" ends up with few sympathetic characters and concludes on a contrived note.
Cohen, a veteran director, is the most accomplished performer, while Abulafia and Hanegbi have the chemistry the overall film lacks.
Such touches as the ghost of Alfred haunting the adult Rivi and the flashback structure are fairly pedestrian, while the tone of the film is often distractingly uneven because of the misconceived score by Adi Cohen.
FAMILY SECRETS
Evanstone Films
Director: Nitza Gonen
Screenwriter: Sherni Zarhin
Producers: Eitan Evan, Moshe Levinson
Director of photography: Gideon Porath
Production designer: Israel Walgelernter
Editor: Danny Shik
Music: Adi Cohen
Color/stereo
Cast:
Rivi: Romi Abulafia
Shauli: Michael Hanegbi
Alfred: Eli Cohen
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 16/12/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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