Arts & Entertainment Three Women Israeli characters are stung by urban angst in Jellyfish. Michael Fox Special to the Jewish News A cclaimed fiction writers Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen's marvel- ous debut feature, Jellyfish, is an even greater triumph than Beaufort and The Band's Visit, the excellent Israeli films that preceded it into American theaters this year. At the same time, the Tel Aviv-set film is the least Israeli of the three, in that it could take place in any city in the world where daughters disappoint their mothers (and vice versa), communication is fractured and frustrated and grand dreams have shrunk to simply getting through the day without succumbing to depression. Tinged with surrealism yet adroitly situ- ated just this side of absurdism, Jellyfish is both an ambitious and ethereal movie. From the opening shot, it strikes a tone of delicacy but not fragility that is rarely achieved in movies. Jellyfish simultaneously tells a trio of unconnected stories, following three women through seemingly ordinary yet pivotal junctures in their lives. Empathetic but unsentimental, pointed but never cruel, the film manages to be simultaneously urgent and dreamlike. Jellyfish won the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year for best first feature. The movie, which Geffen scripted, begins with a waifish young woman named Batya (Sarah Adler) numbly standing by as her boyfriend moves out. She seems to be in a state of shock, but we soon come to see that she is pretty much always passive and distracted. Batya works as a waitress for a caterer, and a lengthy wedding reception presents numerous opportunities for her to be humiliated or ignored. The bride gets treat- ed only slightly better, abandoned on the dance floor and then accidentally locked in the bathroom while a dance tune drowns out her calls for help (not that anyone seems to miss her). Keren (Noa Knoller) and Michael (Gera Sandler) end up spending their honey- moon trapped in a nightmarish hotel barely overlooking the Mediterranean. Imprisoned, in a sense, with each other, they face their first test as newlyweds. Meanwhile, a caretaker named Joy (Ma- nenita De Latorre) moves from one elderly client to the next, yearning to be home with her son in the Philippines and not bothering to learn more than a few words of Hebrew. The paths of the three women occasion- A scene from Jellyfish ally cross — Batya literally runs into Joy, knocking the contents of her purse onto the sidewalk —but the filmmakers don't overdo the coincidences. It is enough that the characters endure the same environ- ment, one that offers neither respite from nor a cure for their malaise. Curiously, for all the anguish on or just below the surface, Jellyfish is never a down- er. Nor is it a morality play or an empower- ment fable or a proto-feminist tragedy. The film might be described as a post- modern slice of cake, a clever and witty approximation of a state of mind. Indeed, the state of detachment, apathy and iner- tia evoked in Jellyfish may be uniquely Israeli — facing the sea, and turning their backs to the country and its problems, the characters reject reality — but it also feels universal and of the moment. Jellyfish is part of a long chain of mov- ies that have plumbed the anonymity and callousness of the big city, and the endless opportunities for fortuitous (even coincidental) meetings that lead to friend- ship, love or transformation. In each of the threads of this movie's narrative, an unrelated person becomes a catalyst for a character's epiphany or reinvigoration. As befits a postmodern tale, Geffen and Keret don't wrap everything up in a happy ending with a bow. Jellyfish is a movie that — like a collection of short stories — asks to be decrypted, discussed and taken into one's heart. ❑ Jellyfish will be shown at the Detroit Film Theatre in the Detroit Institute of Arts 7 and 9:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 1; 4 and 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 3; and 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 4. $6.50-$7.50. (313) 833-4005 or www.dia.org/dft. Espionage Extraordinaire Morton I. Teicher Special to the Jewish News A uthor Daniel Silva continues to expand his well-deserved repu- tation as a master of espionage and international intrigue with Moscow Rules (G. P. Putnam's Sons; $26.95), his eighth spy novel featuring Gabriel Allon, a secret Mossad agent who lives in Italy as an art restorer. In previous novels utilizing real-world backdrops, Silva, employing serious research, has tackled powerful issues, including looted art and Switzerland's behavior during World War II, the war on terror and America's "extraordinary rendi- tion" program, and terrorist recruiting among the barely integrated Muslim com- munities of Western Europe. Now he delves into a series of inter- related issues that are particularly timely: B12 July 31 • 2008 Russia's desperate determination to regain superpower status, its lurch toward fas- cism over the past decade and the shad- owy world of Russian arms dealers who sell to rogue regimes and terrorist orga- nizations under state protec- tion. Following his usual pat- tern, Silva begins with Allon working on the restoration of a painting. The story begins on an isolated estate in Umbria, where Allon is on his honeymoon. It is quickly interrupted when the chief of Special Ops for Mossad asks Allon to meet in Rome with a Russian magazine editor who wants to relay a mes- sage concerning a threat to Israel and the United States. Allon agrees to accept the assignment because the Israelis are seriously con- cerned about rumors that the Russians are selling sophisticated weapons systems to Arabs and others. The carefully planned meeting between Allon and the Russian editor ends in disaster when the Russian is assassinated at their clandes- tine rendezvous. Allon is sent to Russia to find out what the deceased editor wanted to tell him. He is disguised as a func- tionary in the Israel Ministry of Culture. Having artfully set the stage, Silva proceeds to tell the exciting story of Allon's perilous adventures in Russia — and locales around the world. He is bound by "Moscow Rules:' which hold that he must assume that all phones are tapped; all rooms are bugged; e-mails and conversa- tions are monitored; everyone he meets is under Russian control; he is always being followed. Allon discovers that a former KGB officer, now a very rich businessman and secret arms dealer, is plotting to sell deadly weapons to Al Qaida. To prevent a death-dealing act of terror, Allon has to work fast. This searing story will appeal to all of Silva's many fans and, if someone is so unfortunate as not to be familiar with his work, it will serve as a powerful introduc- tion. ❑ Daniel Silva will discuss and sign copies of Moscow Rules 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 1, at Nicola's Books, 2513 Jackson Ave., in Ann Arbor, (734) 662-0600; and 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2, at Borders, 34200 Woodward, in Birmingham, (248) 203-0005.