Once I Was

The Israeli movie Once I Was (Pa'am Hayiti) was shown in the US with the title The Matchmaker (2010). It was written and directed by Avi Nesher. The film was very popular in Israel, where it won four Israeli Academy Awards. The other reviewers of this film are either Israelis or are familiar with Israeli culture, so they can do a better job than I can discussing the reality of the movie. For example, it is set in the seaport of Haifa in 1968, and there are questions about the authenticity of the sets and the accents. I will leave these topics to the experts.

I'm reviewing the film more on its plot and acting. The plot is fascinating. A Holocaust survivor, Yankele Bride (Adir Miller) is a smuggler and petty criminal. That's his profession, but his hobby is matchmaking. His job is to find mates for people who, for whatever reason, are considered undesirable.

The saddest of these people is a young woman, Sylvia, who is very beautiful but has achondroplasia. (The role is played by the extraordinary actress Bat-El Papura.) Sylva wants to be married, but no person of normal height will consider her as a spouse. Even the hapless character called Meir the Librarian turns away from Sylvia when he meets her. Yankele does his best for her, but he never succeeds.

The most obvious theme of the movie is a coming-of-age story of Arik Burstein (Tuval Shafir), whose father is also a Holocaust survivor. Arik starts work as Yankele's "spy," the person who checks out the matchmaker's clients to make sure that they are who and what they say they are. (There's another theme about a visiting American cousin, who is a liberated young woman, but that subplot never goes anywhere.)

The key theme, as I saw it, is that Holocaust survivors were welcomed to Israel, but they weren't admired or honored. As Arik's father says, "people always want to know what we had to do in order to survive." The clash of cultures--eastern European survivors who were seen as victims vs. Israelis who had fought for independence--is in the background of the entire movie. (Sometimes this clash is overt, sometimes it's subtle, but it's always there.)

Of course, Arik is impressed by the brash, streetwise Yankele, as opposed to his own quiet, respectable father. We are supposed to be impressed by Yankele too, because his criminal activities are treated as amusing foibles. I don't think that smuggling goods into Israel was an appropriate way to thank the country that took you in, but he is definitely a likable character in the movie. Each viewer will have to decide about Yankele for herself or himself.

I liked this film well enough to suggest that it's worth seeing if it comes along. I'm not sure it's a movie I would seek out for viewing. We saw The Matchmaker at the excellent Rochester Jewish Film Festival, screened at the wonderful Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House. It will work equally well on a small screen.

Star Adir Miller plays Holocaust survivor Yankele Bride, a shady matchmaker with some mysterious operations on the side. He takes on a wide-eyed young apprentice, Arik (Tuval Shafir), who just wants an easy summer job. Naturally, the boy gets more than he bargained for in this classic tale of an ordinary man thrust into an extraordinary situation.

Miller, a veteran television actor, writer, and producer, is captivating (and a dead ringer for Vincent D'Onofrio). He dominates the screen, masterfully orchestrating the actors, and action, in every scene he's in. Shafir plays the streetwise assistant with a magnetic vulnerability that charms everyone who crosses his path. He's quite experienced himself as a teen idol in his native country, having grown up on Israeli TV as the star of a long-running hit series.

Writer/director Avi Nesher is a true veteran (this is his 16th feature), and it shows. Production values are high, befitting a director considered an icon of Israeli cinema. Veteran cinematographer Michel Abramowicz effectively captures the dramatic landscape of this Mediterranean port city, filled with bright blue skies, lush vegetation, and sweeping mountain vistas. "The Matchmaker" uses multiple locations, both exterior as well as interior. Arik's youthful world is brightly lit with a vibrant primary color palette -- not the pale, washed out blues and grays typical of modestly budgeted European films. In contrast, the seedy underbelly of the city within which Yankele operates is ominously dark and dusty, filled with shadows and potential dangers lurking around every corner.

Although set in Haifa in 1968, "The Matchmaker" could easily be a classic American noir thriller-cum-coming-of-age dramatic comedy. The evocative soundtrack of original late 60s songs is a plus (Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride," Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit"). Definitely worth repeat viewings.

1. Not the greatest actors and accents but it boasts carefully written dialogue, captivating characters, and an aesthetically pleasing 70's summer vibe of the region.

2. This movie packs dating angst and teenage nostalgia (for today's boomers), which isn't difficult to relate - mandela effect, anyone? ;P

3. The plot has a nice pace (no stalling/filler imo) and there are moral lessons all along the way. Some lines even came back to me just now; so I decided to recommend it.

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When they came to Israel, survivors from Nazi Europe did not manage to leave their emotional scars behind.

Even decades later, they found themselves misunderstood by those who had not been "there" in Europe, but in some cases (at least as portrayed in this movie) they thought of love as the great healer and pursued it. They pursued individual love, not free love or universal love, so it is strange that the movie adds a subplot, with an explicit contrast, about the first stirrings of imported Woodstock culture in Israel. Too much, I think. I would rather have seen the story take place ten years earlier and leave out the counterculture. Two cultures, that of the European-born and that of the Israeli-born, would have been contrast enough. I would also rather have seen less effort put into a reconstruction of a square in the Haifa port area that makes it look too vibrant, too colorful, too Fellinesque. (This may be the first Israeli movie that would have benefited from a smaller budget.) But when the movie is on-topic and concentrates on the adult characters rather than on the dream-Haifa set, the period props, or the invasion of American music, it works very well and with the help of some admirable actors, it creates something fresh and good-hearted.

For once the translation of the title works better than the name of the film itself. I did not like 'Paam Haiti' - the Hebrew name of Avi Nesher's film which translates into 'Once I Was' - which says too little about the characters in the movie and the world they live in. 'The Matchmaker' while focusing only on the principal character catches the essential, as the best part in the film in my opinion is indeed the hero played by Adir Miller.

Yankele Bride is a Holocaust survivor who lives in the harbor area of the Israeli city of Haifa in 1968. This is the year after the victory of Israel in the Six Days War, maybe the best year in the history of the young country, although the clouds of the continuing conflict with the Arab countries around are often seen or heard in the headlines shouted by the boys selling newspapers (there were no TV news flashes then, at least not in Israel who was going to have its first TV station only one or two years later). However, the principal heroes of the film do not and cannot share the atmosphere of optimism around - they are Holocaust survivors who live in a country which was created to harbor them, but is unwilling or unable to cope with the horror, the pain, the shame of what they went through. The extraordinary person who is Yankele Bride tries to cure at least part of them, to find for them the peer souls, to heal by bringing love. It's an extraordinary story, which unfortunately did not result into a good film - at least in my view.

Although not as successful as Nesher's previous film 'Turn Left at the End of the World' (that one had a fantastic title!) 'The Matchmaker' enjoyed a good reception in Israel. I confess I did not like it. I simply cannot cope with Nesher's style which mixes moving stories with the traditional (and outdated IMO) style of film-making that was popular in the 70s and 80s in Israel. His usage of popular actors is a waste, and having the extraordinary Miller and the tragic act of Maya Dagan coexist with the unnecessary make-up applied to Dov Navon and the clowny act of Eli Yatzpan is a combination that simply does not work. The coming to age story while acted quite well by the younger actors was unclear and brought back forcefully memories of an older film of Nesher (Ha Lahaka - The Band) from the beginning of the 80. Nesher has problems in telling the story even with the help of off-screen comments. Emphasize was put on building the atmosphere of Haifa in the 60s and this succeeds pretty well, but other details are carelessly treated - the characters are supposed to speak Hebrew with a Romanian accent, but this not how Romanian accent sounds in Hebrew, and worst of all - a Jew from Iasi (Yassi) in Romania would have had close to zero chances to get into Auschwitz during the second world war where numbers where tattooed on the arms of the prisoners. Overall this film deals with an important theme and brings to screen interesting characters, but the realization is disappointing, and even Adir Miller's impressing performance cannot save it from failure.