Zinuk BaAlia

The Israeli comedy Zinuk BaAlia was shown in the U.S. with the title Hill Start (2014), It was co-written and directed by Oren Shtern.

This film begins with a serious accident within the first five minutes. Schlomo Bar-Aba portrays Micha Geva, a tough hard-bitten plastic surgeon. (I've known many plastic surgeons, and that's what they're like.) He's driving when the family is involved in a car accident, which leaves Micha's wife in a coma. It doesn't sound very comedic, and it isn't. However, the family pulls together and visits the mother in in the hospital, and this gives director Shtern the opportunity for family interactions at bedside.

Micha has two children. His daughter, Schlomit, played by Mali Levi, is a teacher who spends most of her time dreaming about a singer/actor who stars in Palestinian-oriented (I think) soap operas. At one point, someone tells Schlomit that she is beautiful and sexy, and she seems genuinely surprised. You have to suspend disbelief at this point, because Mali Levi is impossibly beautiful--sort of an Israeli Angelina Jolie. But, that's the plot.

Another plot revolves around Micha's son, Ari, played by Itay Tiran. Ari is also a plastic surgeon, but he's an anomaly. He's diffident, and under his father's thumb. The film is almost a coming of age movie for his character. However, coming of age for him means getting married to Reli, played by Rotem Zissman-Cohen. Reli is startlingly beautiful, but, unlike Schlomit, she's well aware of her beauty. She's also highly sexual, and that is clearly the only aspect about her that would make Ari want to marry her.

Director Shtern does his best to give her some sort of positive personality and intelligence, but he fails. She's wrong, wrong, wrong for Ari. In this case, Micha is correct. It's too bad that Ari's method of moving out from under his father's thumb is to insist on marrying Reli. But, that's the plot.

There's also a sub-plot. From context, Israeli law requires someone involved in a serious accident to take driving lessons and then be tested. Romi Aboulafia plays Liat, the driving teacher. She's also a yoga instructor. (Don't ask.) There's definitely a certain chemistry between Liat and Micha, but that plot gets in the way of the other plots. (I assume the title "Hill Start" refers to one of the requirements of passing the driving test. If this was mentioned in the film, I missed it.)

We saw this film at Rochester's Little Theatre, as part of the excellent Rochester Jewish Film Festival. It will work well on the small screen. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, it's not available on DVD. If it becomes available, or if it screens at another festival, it's worth watching. If you want a humorous, lightweight Israeli comedy, that's what you'll get. Why not?

A largish, kooky but lovable bunch of people, each with his own eccentricities. It's a difficult recipe to work with. It's old- fashioned. It's Kaufman and Hart. But Israeli cinema returns to it again and again recently-- LOST ISLANDS, THE WORLD IS FUNNY-- and with considerable success. Shlomo Bar-Aba is the big name in this film. He wasn't such a big name in movies until his tour de force in 2011's FOOTNOTE, and oddly (considering that the director claims he thought of Bar-Aba for this part five years ago) he plays a very similar role: a man who's serious and sensitive about his profession, whose son takes up the same profession and doesn't win his father's respect. We don't like the father's gruffness, we don't like the son's passivity, the son is buffaloed into marriage by a fiancée whom the father doesn't like, and we can somewhat agree with the father on that. There's a sister who escapes into a romanticized version of Arabic culture. What's missing is a level-headed protagonist who can represent the audience's point of view, plus a strong central plot thread or obvious theme. ("Everybody learns something," the screenwriter has said. I guess that's there.) But the characters are colorful enough to keep the film enjoyable, Jerusalem photographs very well, and Bar-Aba proves that FOOTNOTE wasn't a fluke while the other actors rise to the occasion as well.