Mon trésor

A story about people, women, which strikes at the heart. A tale which explores the life of a prostitute, and her daughter destined to follow along her path. A camera which skirts around the bodies of the characters. A vision that is intimate, yet distant, non-judgmental. The wasting away of the female flesh, and the reflection of the daughter in the mother, the mother in the daughter. How hopes and dreams begin to whither in the face of circumstance, and how difficult day to day life can be. A beautiful film which elegantly avoid the banalities and triteness of any political statement, yet explores a subject which is inherently political. A must-see if nothing more than for the skillful and intelligent camera.

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.

'Or' means in Hebrew 'light' and may be both a feminine or masculine name. The name is the symbol of what the main character apparently is - a luminous teenager having to deal with a life of privation in today's Israel, taking care of with her prostitute mother and trying to keep her away of the streets, going to school and working in the evenings and having a teen affair with the boy in the neighbors. However, life is not simple for director Keren Yedaya's characters, with the society around keeping them not only at their economic level, but also defining by birth or genetics the moral path of their lives. In the director's view the guilt is however not only with the society but also with the characters themselves, who are not able to draw enough internal power to overcome and break the borders of their condition. It is a social but also a moral comment.

The film belongs to the wave of somehow supported but still low cost wave of production in the Israeli cinema in the last few years, which gave a few more at least interesting and promising productions. Although the subject is interesting and the story has logic and emotion, there are two principal flaws in the production. One is the too obvious and programmatic approach, which kind of pushes the viewer to the director's views rather than letting him develop his or her own feelings abut the story and the situations. The second is the length, there are too many dead moments where it looks like there is nothing to be said, takes where 15 seconds would be enough but the director is spending 50. Still, the film is wonderfully acted by Dana Ivgy and Ronit Elkabetz and the atmosphere of the less privileged Israel is very well caught. A film to watch.

There is a general impression in the minds of cinema goers that films about the taboo topic of prostitution are either too dark or to light. Most of the dark films about prostitution are known to have a sort of documentary touch to them whereas light films about prostitution invariably carry the hackneyed "all prostitutes are beautiful and they have a heart of gold" kind of message.For example: Irma La Douce directed by Billy Wilder and Never on Sunday directed by Jules Dassin. It is not so often that a different kind of film is made which can do justice to the depiction of this disturbing theme.Most of the films about prostitution need to have all the right ingredients in order to carry the proper message to viewers.This film by Keren Yedaya called "Or" is a unique film in the history of Israelian cinema.It is for the first time that the absurdist theme of prostitution has been boldly shown especially in the context of evils which disturb the human mind,body and soul.The film is a success as it depicts that the act of prostitution is a modern day evil which is closely associated with other roguish facets of modern age such as crime and drugs.Or can also be read as a sad tale of an irresponsible mother who is unable to take proper care of her daughter.The bizarre thing about this film is that towards its end the evil practice of prostitution is accepted by a person who was single handedly waging a fierce as well as a heroic battle against it.This is a hint to state that there is no possible end to the vicious circle of evil as circumstances even force a strong willed person to be a part of it.

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.