Israeli sci-fi gets made with alarming infrequency, probably a couple of places behind Yukon Sasquatch sightings in the Great Book of Seldom Occurring Phenomena. Thus, any attempt in the genre, no matter how abysmally executed, immediately receives instant extra credit for trying. Even so, Doron Eran's 1990 internationally flavored rendition of Amos Kenan's classic novelette flounders big time despite substantive faithfulness to the original vision. Taking its cue from similar predictions for dystopic futures, Ein Harod (which has been occasionally dubbed Road to Freedom for English releases) projects a totalitarian Israel where democracy has been sacked by military elites using made-up water shortages as ruse to keep the populace under control. Tony Peck, the first in a pair of celebs drafted to the marketing effort when this came out a decade and a half ago, plays disgruntled Saul Jordan, a former journalist and social activist. When authorities put out an APB on Jordan, he makes for an elusive, semi-mythical kibbutz somewhere in the north (Ein Harod, a real-life community by the way), from whence brazen radio transmissions proclaim promises of liberty and resistance to the despotic regime. On the way he hooks up with a Palestinian vagabond (Arnon Zadok), and naturally the two transcend history and nationalism to become close friends.
While evading capture, the duo take possession of an army colonel (Rami Danon) and his small entourage, one of whom happens to be sexy Liora (Alessandra Mussolini, the second so-called celebrity). This situation also allows into proceedings one of the book's more entertaining in-jokes, since three of the five go by the name Rafi: the colonel, his aide and Saul's fellow escapee. Sadly, though, the film fails to develop the irony in a society driven to generic blandness by lies, self-denial and hypocrisy, as hinted at by the uncanny coincidence. In fact, it pretty much fails on all counts. Sure, the mood works fine, with locales doing their part in generating a desolate, claustrophobic atmosphere, from water-starved Tel-Aviv to nowhere spots up in `the northern command'. Audibly Ein Harod has exactly what one would expect from a corny, post-80's, pre-90's SF experiment, i.e lots of apocalyptic synth a la The Terminator.
Unfortunately, producers went for English dialogue throughout with an eye on world audiences, of course. There's no Hebrew save for character and place names, eroding the movie's already questionable credibility. Besides, the DVD version reviewed herein suffers from atrociously incomprehensible voices and no subtitles whatsoever. What ruins Ein Harod above all other issues has to be its reliance on B (no, make that C) movie standards. These include hokey action sequences, laughable FX (yes, even for its time), exaggerated acting and perplexingly horny women awkwardly forcing themselves on reluctant men. The end result conjures images of an over-sexed Plan 9 From the Middle East.
There were other Israeli forays into SF since then, most much better than the above proscribed, but too few nonetheless. A shame, then, since Ein Harod could have been the industry's rally call coming from such a rich literary and visionary background.
