Fogueira

The Israeli title is Medurat Hashevet. Rachel Gerlik is a widow with two teen daughters, Tami and Esti. She is struggling and applies to join a new West Bank settlement. She has to first convince the founding community of her commitment to the cause. Her girls join the group's youth wing for a camping excursion. Late into the night, Tami gets left alone with a group of boys around the campfire.

The hypocrisy is front and center. This is a tough situation and a challenging film. Some viewers may not want that challenge although it seem to have been a critical success in the festival circuit including Israel.

"Campfire (Medurat Hashevet)" will probably draw the most attention for its insights into West Bank settlers of the 1980's, but I found it more intriguing as a moving and humor-filled portrait of a family caught at the conflict between feelings and society, particularly in a boys will be boys culture.

Like "Broken Wings (Knafayim Shvurot)," this is an Israeli family with teenagers struggling with apolitical grief, but that was a secular family. Like "Upside of Anger," there's a grieving mom struggling with teenage daughters as all are dealing with their loneliness and sexuality. Like "Welcome to the Dollhouse" and "Smooth Talk," it deals with teen girls susceptibility to guys. "Saved!" showed teens dealing with some these issues in a comparable conservative community, but satirically unsympathetic.

Here instead we have a mother in a situation that would be difficult in any time, any place. The mother has just finished her year of mourning for her husband and is at loose ends, financially, emotionally and as a now single parent of daughters anxious to get on with their lives. All three are vulnerable to persuasion. But they happen to be a modern Orthodox family in Israel so their normal developmental stages are buffeted by religious and social strictures on their behavior.

The mother is attracted to the possibility of joining her husband's friends in a group to found a West Bank settlement, more for the companionship and structure it would give to her and her family's life than for zealotry. I'm sure American audiences miss a lot of the political references during scenes of organizing committee meetings, applicant interviews and singing, sloganeering and film viewing (let alone subtleties involved with types and angles of head coverings and length of skirts worn, eating habits and the summer fast day of Tisha b'Av), but the diversity of motivations and social hypocrisy of many of those involved does come through. Going through the process of dealing with these friends and their expectations makes her stronger as an individual, particularly as she reflects on her marriage and what she wants from future relationships.

The triangle of the younger and older women's relationships is among the most emotionally frank I've seen on film in its honesty about insecurities, confusions and peer pressure in male-female relationships, symbolized throughout by the father's car and how they and the guys around them deal with it.

While the mother is pushed to re-enter the dating pool and explores a relationship with some similarity to how Catherine Keener sweetly handles "The 40 Year Old Virgin," the older daughter focuses on her one-track minded hunky soldier boyfriend, seems to be rebelliously secular and is opposed to moving.

The younger daughter absorbs all these contradictory signals. There's a marvelous scene of her exuberantly dancing to romantic pop music at home by herself that is straight out of "My So-Called Life" (or the totemic equivalent for guys "Risky Business") to show that in the U.S. she'd be considered a typical teen ager. Her curiosity about boys is therefore not surprising, so that the adults around her seem rigidly clueless in not expecting that restlessness from her when the appeal of the bad boy is clearly universal. There are occasional references to the complexities of a diversifying Israel that Americans can understand, as when the mother comments the B'nei Akiva youth group isn't the same as when she was young.

The actresses are refreshingly not Hollywood beautiful, though it is clearly a running visual joke when the safe guy choices are not just nerdy but are bursting their untucked shirt buttons, even as it is sympathetic to their pressures as well, making the alternatives that much more attractive.

While this is no "Norma Rae" or "My Brilliant Career" as a feminist tract, nor is it the anti-Orthodox agit-prop of "Kadosh," the film has a strong, fair and balanced humanistic and sweetly forgiving point to make about women in a male-dominated society who are expected to act a certain way and the consequences they face when they step out of line -- and how the men who love them can be supportive as they learn to live together.

While "Campfire" is distributed unrated by the MPAA in the U.S., as a parent I would give it a PG-13. It deals with some of the same issues as PG-rated "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" but in a more serious and mature way as applied to a younger teen.

It's too easy to dismiss this film as just another dump on an Orthodox Community and/or the West Bank settlements. There really is a Bnei Akiva and settlements so I can see this kind of thing happening. Probably because I'm not Jewish I can see that the film depicts universal situations that could likely happen in any country or culture other than Bnei Akiva or Orthodox Judaism. I've been at church camps where the "bad boys" have sung dirty songs in a corner by themselves. I haven't seen sexual molestation as happens in this film but I wouldn't say that it's never happened at a church camp. Leaders all over the world try to cover up a scandal the way Motke tries, doing the wrong thing just to preserve the image of their business (organization, political movement, whatever). The search for love is the most universal desire of all. Rachel and Yossi are in a situation where it's extremely difficult to find love, when we're over 40. It happens but not often enough. This film, like many films from countries with unpopular reputations, should have gained more recognition than it did.

Yehoram Gaon deserves special recognition for coming out of retirement to take on a small part in the film. He could have easily rested on his reputation but he assumes the role of a not particularly likable pompous ass and does it well. Yehoram Gaon was the teenage idol of Israel in the 1960's. He deserves special credit for allowing himself to be photographed old, balding and with his gut hanging over his cummerbund. That's real bravery. But he proves in this film he still has it as a singer in a memorable scene of a cantorial concert. Yehoram Gaon could sing chazanut to this Gentile for hours and I wouldn't mind.

Michaela Eshet also deserves special recognition for her portrayal of a single mother dealing with raising teenage daughters as she simultaneously goes on the dating market after her year of mourning. IMDb doesn't list many film performances of Michaela Eshet so I must assume that her expertise comes from the stage.

This is not a perfect film. The Hebrew title "Medurat Hashevet"should have been more literally translated into English as "Tribal Campfire" to provide a better description of the story line. It would have been better to see Tami's molesters punished, Motke demoted and all the other loose ends of the various situations tied up but there's only so much that can be accomplished in the standard two hours. I'll give this movie nine stars out of ten.

I just saw this movie tonight as part of the Seattle International Film Festival and I knew to expect something great because it won the best feature film "Ophir" in Israel (like Oscar award). I was pleasantly surprised that it was more than just the simple story that is described in the synopsis. It is a human story with a lot of heart. The movie explores falling in love from three different perspectives. It includes all the emotions that go with it. It also shows three different approaches to dealing with the opposite sex and it seems they each learn a bit from each other. The message is universal but the film is unique. Go see it!

I just watched this film! Sorry it took so long. I am impressed at how the Israeli Film Industry is developing and maturing. That is the real importance of this film! Well done to everyone. The acting was great! Everyone did a wonderful job. Yes let's be honest they had a good intelligent sensitive and strong script to work with. I wasn't sure where the story would take us, would it keep within that sort of comic story-line or was it going to develop into something more dramatic? Would it go over the top, as many Israeli films have a tendency to do (mostly lack of craft and self confidence in directors and editors) or would the film develop the characters with that same strength as it started with.

It just got better and better! The editing was good too - well done. I am impressed. Congratulations to the director, producers, actors, the entire crew.

The politics of that era? That was a good setting and an interesting way to tell this story. It did not distract from the story, it gave it a good strong setting, it gave it a fundamental foundation on which the writer was able to develop his love of craft.

The set design was good, keeping within the world of the early 1980s - yes these points are important in making a film.

I enjoyed every moment of the film!!! I loved the scene where Tammy is in the apartment by herself, singing and dancing and being a teenage girl in her 'performing imagination' it was wonderful! Hani did a GREAT job!

Everyone and everything was convincing. Again congratulations!