t tmft,tk,
Like A IN=
Israeli director Eytan Fox's latest di
°lifers an .unprecedented look into the
secret world, o the Israeli .spy system.
Director F-Yra n Fox
31it-enz,/:le, Gal UChOtS.
ff
dal
Pal;:rierS.
IVOR DAVIS
Featurewell. corn
Iti
ollywood and the media have regularly
given us inside peeks into the less than
perfect workings of the American intelli-
gence agencies. And thanks to John Le Carre's
brilliant collection of works, we know more than
we need to about how real British agents ply their
Byzantine trade.
But Israel's highly touted Mossad secret service
has mostly kept its dirty laundry to itself. Its
agents have had incredible successes and the occa-
sional botch-up, but mostly, at least from the big
screen, we have learned little about how they
work.
That's why Israeli director Eytan Fox's superb
new film, Walk on Water, is such an eye opener.
It's not a calculated examination of the inner
workings of a spy agency considered one of the
best in the world — but an up-close look at one
man and the effect of his oft-dirty work on his
life and personality.
Lior Ashkenazi — often dubbed the Israeli Tom
Cruise — plays Eyal, an ice-cool assassin, as dead-
3/24
2005
40
ly with a poison syringe as he is with a gun. But
when he is ordered to hunt down and kill an aged
Nazi war criminal, his life gets complicated.
At his handler's instructions, Eyal gets friendly
with the fugitive's hardheaded granddaughter and
his openly gay grandson, which eventually leads
Eyal to question the very nature of his profession.
Walk on Water also gives us a unique look into
the tumultuous life of today's Israel, where suicide
bombings are almost as commonplace as traffic
accidents, and where even hit men have disinte-
grating private lives and are not totally invincible.
Eytan Fox's last work, Yossi and Jagger won a
passel of awards while at the same time needling
many Israelis. It was a look at the Israeli army
through the eyes of two gays soldiers.
Fox has carved a reputation for himself as a
director who never shows Israel through rose-col-
ored spectacles, though his love for his country
and its people manages to shine through whatever
he does.
Walk on Water has opened in 40 countries and
comes to North American screens this month. It
is scheduled to open at Landmark's Main Art
Theatre in Royal Oak on April 1.
Rooted In Truth
The 40-year old Fox — who immigrated to Israel
with his parents from New York when he was 2
— recently came to the United States to talk
about his latest provocative work.
The movie, he says, is rooted firmly in truth.
"It started with a story I heard from my psy-
chologist about a Mossad agent who comes home
from a mission abroad and finds his wife has
committed suicide. She leaves him a note about
how difficult and miserable life had become with
him because everything he touches he kills.
"But being the man he is and the killer he is, he
goes back immediately to preparing for his next
mission and starts to crack up."
Besides giving us an unprecedented look into
the secret world of the Israeli spy system, Fox is
brutally honest as he tackles issues sensitive to
Israelis: their attitudes today toward gays, Arabs
and even Nazis.
Using his Mossad agent as the anti-hero center-
piece, Fox says he made several connections.
"The connection into the Holocaust and how
our parents and grandparents came from Europe
and wanted to start a state for Jews and to create