Medurat Hashevet

I just saw this movie tonight as part of the Seattle International Film Festival and I knew to expect something great because it won the best feature film "Ophir" in Israel (like Oscar award). I was pleasantly surprised that it was more than just the simple story that is described in the synopsis. It is a human story with a lot of heart. The movie explores falling in love from three different perspectives. It includes all the emotions that go with it. It also shows three different approaches to dealing with the opposite sex and it seems they each learn a bit from each other. The message is universal but the film is unique. Go see it!

The first question that popped in my head once the ending credits appeared, was- should I be offended?

This movie, after all, deals with religious-Zionists and I am a movie-buff secular so maybe the depiction of this much maligned (for no justifiable reason, in my humble opinion) sector was credible and not a slanderous attack. I believe I have reached a conclusion.

Today, when a new rift in Israel is emerging over the implementation of the disengagement program lead by prime minister, Ariel Sharon, it's easy to relate to the 1981 struggle against the evacuation of the Sinai peninsula after the signing of the historical peace accord with Egypt.

1981 found Tammy Gerlik (Hani Furstenberg in a wonderful performance) in a Jerusalemite neighborhood with her older sister and widowed mom who decides to move to a new settlement in the occupied territories with her circle of the religious, patriotic and unified but also hypocrite and mistrusting circle of friends. It also finds Tammy in her teenage years when romantic feelings and self-defining questioning begin to emerge. Her generally cheerful personality suffers a major setback when Tammy is nearly raped by a violent teenager with the cheering of his dubious "buddies". With a mother too self-absorbed, and "friends" that tag her as a promiscuous girl, she finds a soul mate in her rebellious sister that is alienated to her mother for abolishing her chance of privacy in a very boisterously funny scene that involves a hammer (can't elaborate, sorry).

In the meantime, the mother, Rachel (Micaela Eshet, in a reasonably good but not much more, performance), is a 42 year old strong woman who had married too early and went through life without falling in love. While shunning as delicately as possible the courting of a highly renowned and severely boring, cantor, she forms a friendship with, Yossi, a bachelor bus driver/ultimate loser who has lost hope of ever conjugating (let alone, wed) an actual woman.

With Yossi as a refuge from the pretense of a strong willed woman, Rachel realizes the true nature of her friends, the frailty of their loyalty and worst of all, their obsession of sweeping unflattering phenomena under the carpet, even at the grave price of perpetuating it for posterity.

The movie is well acted, credibly written and even manages to give the audience the atmosphere of the early 80's when Israelis had one TV channel to watch, one telephone company and a strong sense of patriotism that is disparaged and demonetized by too many these days.

Which brings me to my question in the beginning of this review, should I, the secular guy (who identifies with Yossi the bus driver more than he wishes), should be offended when the religious society is presented in a very critical manner.

The answer to that question is simple: when you are offended on behalf of a grown up group for being disparaged, you might be disparaging it yourself by deciding for them how they should feel.

I feel, personally, that the director, Yosef Cedar (who grew up in a religious background but is pretty estranged to it, according to his own testimony) decided to "indict" his origins. As a result, the viewer is deprived from an unbiased impression of one of the most enigmatic, controversial and riveting sector in contemporary Israeli society.

The movie won as best film in the Israeli Oscar competition and its victory was outshone by the fact that the movie "sof haolam smola" which was one of the most popular films in Israeli history, wasn't even nominated in any of the major categories.

Unfair representation of "Sof haolam smola" in the Israeli Oscar robbed the movie of the buzz it could have generated. Also, the film's unfair representation of a certain sector in the Israeli society left me questioning its antagonism, rather than enjoy its undeniable qualities. Qualities it hones in abundance.

8.5 out of 10 in my FilmOmeter.

"Campfire (Medurat Hashevet)" will probably draw the most attention for its insights into West Bank settlers of the 1980's, but I found it more intriguing as a moving and humor-filled portrait of a family caught at the conflict between feelings and society, particularly in a boys will be boys culture.

Like "Broken Wings (Knafayim Shvurot)," this is an Israeli family with teenagers struggling with apolitical grief, but that was a secular family. Like "Upside of Anger," there's a grieving mom struggling with teenage daughters as all are dealing with their loneliness and sexuality. Like "Welcome to the Dollhouse" and "Smooth Talk," it deals with teen girls susceptibility to guys. "Saved!" showed teens dealing with some these issues in a comparable conservative community, but satirically unsympathetic.

Here instead we have a mother in a situation that would be difficult in any time, any place. The mother has just finished her year of mourning for her husband and is at loose ends, financially, emotionally and as a now single parent of daughters anxious to get on with their lives. All three are vulnerable to persuasion. But they happen to be a modern Orthodox family in Israel so their normal developmental stages are buffeted by religious and social strictures on their behavior.

The mother is attracted to the possibility of joining her husband's friends in a group to found a West Bank settlement, more for the companionship and structure it would give to her and her family's life than for zealotry. I'm sure American audiences miss a lot of the political references during scenes of organizing committee meetings, applicant interviews and singing, sloganeering and film viewing (let alone subtleties involved with types and angles of head coverings and length of skirts worn, eating habits and the summer fast day of Tisha b'Av), but the diversity of motivations and social hypocrisy of many of those involved does come through. Going through the process of dealing with these friends and their expectations makes her stronger as an individual, particularly as she reflects on her marriage and what she wants from future relationships.

The triangle of the younger and older women's relationships is among the most emotionally frank I've seen on film in its honesty about insecurities, confusions and peer pressure in male-female relationships, symbolized throughout by the father's car and how they and the guys around them deal with it.

While the mother is pushed to re-enter the dating pool and explores a relationship with some similarity to how Catherine Keener sweetly handles "The 40 Year Old Virgin," the older daughter focuses on her one-track minded hunky soldier boyfriend, seems to be rebelliously secular and is opposed to moving.

The younger daughter absorbs all these contradictory signals. There's a marvelous scene of her exuberantly dancing to romantic pop music at home by herself that is straight out of "My So-Called Life" (or the totemic equivalent for guys "Risky Business") to show that in the U.S. she'd be considered a typical teen ager. Her curiosity about boys is therefore not surprising, so that the adults around her seem rigidly clueless in not expecting that restlessness from her when the appeal of the bad boy is clearly universal. There are occasional references to the complexities of a diversifying Israel that Americans can understand, as when the mother comments the B'nei Akiva youth group isn't the same as when she was young.

The actresses are refreshingly not Hollywood beautiful, though it is clearly a running visual joke when the safe guy choices are not just nerdy but are bursting their untucked shirt buttons, even as it is sympathetic to their pressures as well, making the alternatives that much more attractive.

While this is no "Norma Rae" or "My Brilliant Career" as a feminist tract, nor is it the anti-Orthodox agit-prop of "Kadosh," the film has a strong, fair and balanced humanistic and sweetly forgiving point to make about women in a male-dominated society who are expected to act a certain way and the consequences they face when they step out of line -- and how the men who love them can be supportive as they learn to live together.

While "Campfire" is distributed unrated by the MPAA in the U.S., as a parent I would give it a PG-13. It deals with some of the same issues as PG-rated "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" but in a more serious and mature way as applied to a younger teen.

I just watched this film! Sorry it took so long. I am impressed at how the Israeli Film Industry is developing and maturing. That is the real importance of this film! Well done to everyone. The acting was great! Everyone did a wonderful job. Yes let's be honest they had a good intelligent sensitive and strong script to work with. I wasn't sure where the story would take us, would it keep within that sort of comic story-line or was it going to develop into something more dramatic? Would it go over the top, as many Israeli films have a tendency to do (mostly lack of craft and self confidence in directors and editors) or would the film develop the characters with that same strength as it started with.

It just got better and better! The editing was good too - well done. I am impressed. Congratulations to the director, producers, actors, the entire crew.

The politics of that era? That was a good setting and an interesting way to tell this story. It did not distract from the story, it gave it a good strong setting, it gave it a fundamental foundation on which the writer was able to develop his love of craft.

The set design was good, keeping within the world of the early 1980s - yes these points are important in making a film.

I enjoyed every moment of the film!!! I loved the scene where Tammy is in the apartment by herself, singing and dancing and being a teenage girl in her 'performing imagination' it was wonderful! Hani did a GREAT job!

Everyone and everything was convincing. Again congratulations!

I think people either love or hate this movie, and their politics will have an influence, of course.

The movie shows the less than pretty side of the settler movement and the national religious wing -- the sexism, the hostility toward anyone that doesn't fit the exact mold (even if they support the movement politically), the racism.

The heroine who thinks that going off to a settlement in the occupied territories is - surprise, surprise! - shocked to discover that as a woman without a man, getting accepted will be an uphill struggle (they tell her straight out they need men for not only defense, but prayer quorums, as women don't count there). The near rape of the younger daughter is by nationalistic religious boys who are on the outskirts of their own movement because of their dark skin (the very fundamentalist Shas movement is the result of this discrimination within the religious community, but that's another story).

Of course the religious/settlement people will hate this movie. The people responsible for sending it out of the country will probably be called traitors (and I wouldn't be surprised if there are death threats) for showing the warty side of the settlers among themselves, never mind towards the Palestinians.

Gaon is sure a hoot in his role -- by the way, in real life he is rather center left.