Zihron Devarim is the first of a trilogy of movies (the trilogy of three cities), by Amos Gitai about three great Israeli cities: Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. This one is dedicated to Tel-Aviv, I like it more than others of the trilogy even if Kadosh, the movie dedicated to Jerusalem, is best internationally known and the most appreciated of the whole trilogy by the criticism. I've read Yaakov Shabtai's Zihron Devarim (aka Past Continuous), the book on which the movie was based, a really difficult reading, highly depressing, written in one paragraph compared by someone to Proust's In Search of Lost Time for its importance (a little exaggerate comparison I think). The story is about a group of people who are struggling with their existential problems, they'd like to love but they can't do it, they'd like to change their life but they always stay in the same place doing the same things, they'd like to live but they're pervaded by a sense of death, they cannot do anything but to watch themselves living. An important topic of the book which didn't find a place in the movie is the intolerance and how much it can be deeply rooted in the human mind promoted by an oppressive social setting and by a some religious fervor, this intolerance is portrayed by Goldman's father, a key character in the book, which unluckily wasn't deepened enough in the movie. Another important character of the book, which was totally cut out, is uncle Lazare whose lines were assigned to Stephana, Goldman's mother, that doesn't make sense because Goldman hates his mother and he thinks she's going out of her mind (in the book he speaks to her occasionally), whereas uncle Lazare is a really balanced kind whit whom Goldman loves to discourse about philosophy and to play chess. Nevertheless I think this movie a really good adaption of a great book, reading Zihron Devarim I used to feel a sense of pain, because of the sense of hopelessness and inevitability that pervade the whole story, well the same feeling I found in the movie, in addition I liked the score very much though it's utilized too little I think.
