Or (My Treasure)

Ors mother is a recovering drug user and whore. Or takes care of herself and her mother, goes to school, washes dishes at a restaurant, recycles. Or is obsessed with cleaning. Ors mother is not good at cleaning. In fact Or worked out a house cleaning job for her mother but her mother can't hack it and would rather sneak out to work the streets. Eventually johns from the past even visit Ors mother at home. Or deals with her mothers condition at first optimistically, helping her out of her need for self deprivation, but after a while, or can't take it and stops going to school, meets more and more boys who take advantage of her inability to say no, denys the one kid who might have genuinely like her, until finally she too falls into a self destructive cycle.

This is an amazing film about the destructive life of a mother and her daughter who tries to help her but in the end cannot bare the weight of such burdensome obligations. Its hopeless and grim. All the technical aspects compliment the mood of the film. The camera takes an objective view by being completely still and having actions happen even if on the boarder of the frame. The naturalistic sound, with no music, increases a kind of uneasiness in the viewer. Furthermore, the long silences, scenes with just a few words and gestures, natural lighting, sometimes under lit, great spaces and scenery surrounding characters on screen work in a way to create a very unique world with a dense psychological complexity. We are simply viewing this world from the window director Keren Yadaya has given us.

When this film ended I was left feeling that people are parts of whole systems working continuously but constantly wearing down as time goes on. Where everything is connected, the newer and less worn parts work more efficiently for a short time, taking the work load of those in its proximity. But in the end, every part is eventually going to be overworked, and will become faulty.

Yet, despite it's rather dark message this film, and others like it, (mostly, I'm thinking Requiem for a Dream) are not meant to depress people or lead to thoughts of suicide in the dark existence we inhabit. Not at all. Instead, I think films like this are meant to show people how bad things can get, they objectively separate us as viewers from worlds where real people like the ones portrayed might exist, and as viewers we are suppose to more consciously understand the complexity of life and the characters in it. So this being the case, films like these, are odes to life, messages to insight in us living for goodness, away from darkness which the films most immediate layers transmit.

This film is not entertainment, it is art at its highest form. I'm glad I have discovered (thanks to a friend) the work of Keren Yedaya. Its artists like this who constantly reform cinema as not just mindless entertainment but truly as a powerful medium for commenting and critiquing the world around us. For that, an 8 out of 10.

Great movie. Shows the maturity of Israeli cinema. If you're looking for a happy ending or Hollywood romance, don't bother watching this film. If you are looking for something deeper than that, you'll be fascinated throughout the movie. It's difficult to watch, but it's not difficult to follow. The director keeps your attention throughout the film. Veteran Israeli actor Ivgy's daughter is amazing in the role of Or, the daughter of a prostitute, played by the superb Ronit Alqabetz. Look out for Alqabetz in other great Israeli movies, like Late Marriage ("Mariage Tardif" in French). This is stark realism at its best. The moral message is powerful, but nuanced. Ruthie (the mother) comes across very much as much a victim of her own choices.

I first saw Ronit Elkabetz in The Band's Visit, and then in Late Marriage. She was fantastic in both and really captivated me. I am so glad I saw her in films where she was appealing before I saw this. Here, she is an aging, drug-addicted prostitute, who is being cared for by her teen daughter Or (Dana Ivgy). It is classic role reversal, and it is not very pretty.

It means Or works late at night, collects anything that can be sold, and cares for her mother like she was a child. All to keep her off the streets. School becomes a hit or miss thing as she spends time collecting bottles. It is a day-to-day battle.

While Or is trying to save her mother she is being used as a sexual receptacle by everyone. She finally ends up getting paid for it rather than just giving it away. All to no avail as her mother continues to hit the streets.

Ivgy and Elkabetz were outstanding in this sad slice of life.

Get ready for a raw, gritty look at prostitution and how some end up there. While the plot is uncomplicated, the film is unrelenting -- you won't crack so much as a smile; no humor whatsoever here. The story of a prostitute and her teenage daughter is powerfully told. The daughter, predictably, runs the household and has to mother the hopelessly irresponsible mother. They barely get by with the help of the neighbors, who are also the owners of a diner where the daughter works part-time. It's a slice-of-life drama that, while it takes place in Israel, could easily take place anywhere where low expectations meet low self-esteem. Be warned: It doesn't leave you upon leaving the theater.

Or adeptly portrays the subjugation of both men and women to a misogynist culture, exposing the entrapment of violation and the many marks it leaves on women's bodies, the compulsion to move toward further violence, and men's complicity in this degradation of the body -- their own and women's. An heir to the works of important feminist thinkers (Andrea Dworkin, Susan Griffin, Adrienne Rich), this film pulls the viewer gently into an unabsorbable tirade and presents the question of the futility of human relations. Suffocating and bleak, set against an otherwise fairly banal landscape (and herein lies its strength), it doesn't shirk from exposing the underlay of the socially sanctioned pathology of male sexuality. In its insistent questioning, the film takes the viewer deep into the unresolvable, avoiding easy answers. The problem presented is devastating and Yedaya commits the viewer to sitting with their own unease, to touch, as it were, the very body of the film and face their own complicity in this unpardonable scheme.