Razi (Tsahi Halevy)

and Sanfur (Shadi

Mar'i) in a scene

from Bethlehem

Bethlehem — Israel's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language
Film — will screen at the Detroit Film Theatre.

I

Tom Tugend

the conflict in terms of unblemished virtue who told him that "the key to recruiting
against pure evil — that they're not going
and running informants is not violence,
to like the way the film handles its subject. or intimidation or money; the key is to
oreign-language (meaning non
As the film's producer, Talia
develop an intimate relationship with the
English-language) films from
Kleinhandler, writes, "What I think is
informant, on a very human level.
76 countries, ranging from
important about this story is that it never
"It's not just the informant who is con-
Afghanistan to Venezuela, have competed
attempts to give a clear answer about right fused about his identity and loyalties. The
for Oscar honors this year, with Israel's
and wrong. All the characters in Bethlehem agent, too — and especially the good ones
entry, Bethlehem, pitting Shin Bet, Israel's
are flawed; all are vulnerable. There is no
— often experience a blurring of the lines:'
internal security service, against diverse
black and white in this film, only painful
Following this dictum, Sanfur, whose
Palestinian factions eager to blow up the
shades of gray — like the reality we all live own father clearly favors the militant
Jewish state.
in here
Ibrahim over his younger son, finds in
But, it turns out, the famously unpre-
If this assessment makes it sound like
Razi a kind of surrogate father, and Razi
dictable Academy selection committee
a namby-pamby movie — full of on-the-
cares personally for the boy — even if that
did not include Bethlehem in its top five
one-hand, but on-the-other-hand agoniz-
clashes with his professional duties.
Academy Award-nominated films, despite ing — Bethlehem, named for the West
While the Palestinian militants hate
its being touted as a real Oscar contender
Bank city where the action unfolds, is
Israel, they dislike their internal rivals
in a number of Hollywood publications.
anything but.
with equal intensity. The secular al-Aqsa
Bethlehem will screen at the Detroit
Co-written by Yuval Adler, an Israeli
Martyrs Brigade, affiliated with Fatah,
Film Theatre at the Detroit Institute of
Jew who served in an army intelligence
contemptuously refers to the fervently
Arts the weekends of Feb. 28-March 2 and unit, and Ali Waked, a Palestinian Muslim Islamic Hamas as the "beards:' who in
March 7-9.
and journalist, Bethlehem is a nail-biting
turn loathe the corrupt bureaucrats of the
The final five Best Foreign Language
Palestinian Authority.
thriller with enough intrigue and bullets
Film nominees — selected from a shortlist to keep the most demanding action fan
Co-writer Waked, interviewed in a
of nine films that had been whittled down
satisfied.
Hollywood hotel, draws an analogy between
from the original 76 submissions — are
The film's time and setting is the Second
these feuds and the pre-1948 Jewish com-
Belgium's The Broken Circle Breakdown,
Intifada, roughly from 2000 to 2005, and in munity in Palestine, when Menachem
Cambodia's The Missing Picture,
the opening scene, Palestinian suicide bomb- Begin's Etzel and David Ben-Gurion's
Denmark's The Hunt, Italy's The Great
ers have struck in the heart of Jerusalem,
Haganah detested each other with as much
Beauty and the Palestinian film Omar.
leaving scores dead and wounded.
fervor as they did the British soldiers.
In years past, the U.S. Academy wrestled
The central protagonists are Razi, a
Another remarkable aspect of Bethlehem
with the proper terminology for the
veteran Shin Bet (or Shabak) agent, and
is that almost everyone involved in making
"Palestinian Authority" or "Palestinian
Sanfur, a 17-year-old Palestinian recruited
the movie is pretty much of a novice.
Territories:' but apparently everybody has
by Razi as an informer two years earlier.
The strong acting lineup, foremost Shadi
stopped worrying about the problem, so
But Sanfur isn't just any kid with a
Mar'i as Sanfur and Tsahi Halevy as Razi,
the film Omar, which made the cut as an
hankering for American jeans. He is the
consists almost entirely of first-time actors.
Oscar nominee (and opened in Detroit
younger brother of Ibrahim, the local
Furthermore, for both Adler and Waked,
on Feb. 21), is credited with coming from
leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade,
Bethlehem is their first feature film.
whom Razi has been hunting for more
Adler, 44, said in an interview that
"Palestine" (for more on the film, see the
IN story "On the Red Carpet:' Feb. 20,
than a year.
his film debut is a major hit in its home
page 37).
Like almost everything in the movie, and country; it won six awards, including Best
In Hollywood's hands, the plot of
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict it depicts, Picture, at the Israeli equivalent of the
Bethlehem would be a no-brainer, with
the relationship between the seasoned
Academy Awards.
the guys in the white hats mopping up the
Israeli agent and the teenage Palestinian
Israel's media, which have a much
higher tolerance for national self-criticism
floor with the bad guys.
boy is complex and often contradictory.
However, it is only fair to warn flag-
Adler, who is also the film's director,
than their American counterparts, have
waving partisans on either side — who see quotes a veteran Israeli secret service agent generally come out with complimentary

Jewish Journal of Greater LA

F

reviews, though the strongest raves have
been in the foreign press and trade papers.
Curiously, in most countries the politi-
cal right would have condemned the film's
critical take on the national security ser-
vice, but in Israel, it has been the left that
has slammed the picture for its supposedly
distorted view of the Palestinian struggle.
Thus in an article in the daily Ha'aretz,
headlined "Bethlehem is yet another Israeli
propaganda film:' critic Gideon Levy
terms as "outrageous" what he sees as the
movie's portrayal of Israelis as the good
guys and Palestinians as the bad guys.
Adler, who has steadfastly declined
to discuss his own political orientation,
considers such charges preposterous.
His diverse cast of Israeli and Palestinian
actors "made it possible to see the world
through their eyes:' he said. As director,
I tried to bring their contradictory view-
points into a single whole, without taking
sides, and without judging them:'
For the Israeli Film Academy, picking
Bethlehem as the country's official Oscar
contender marks an interesting shift in
focus from the two preceding entries:
Footnote, which dealt with academic rival-
ries at a university, and last year's entry,
Fill the Void, which viewed life and love
among the fervently Orthodox.
A quick glance at the submissions from
other countries shows that, contrary to
frequent predictions, the world's producers
and directors have not lost their interest in
movies about the Nazi era, the Holocaust
and the conflict in the Middle East.
Argentina's The German Doctor fol-
lows the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele,
Auschwitz's "Angel of Death:' as he flees
to the South American country and
befriends an unsuspecting family there.
The Philippines' The Transit deals with
the lives of Filipinos working in mostly
low-paid jobs in Israel. For World War II
buffs, there is Russia's Stalingrad, which
chronicles both the epic battle and love
among its ruins.
Actually nominated for an Oscar is
another project with very Jewish content:
The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My
Life, a 38-minute film up for Best Short
Documentary that tells the story of the
world's oldest known Holocaust survivor,
110-year-old Alice Herz-Sommer, an
accomplished concert pianist and teacher,
wife and mother — and former prisoner
in Theresienstadt — who died just this
past Sunday, Feb. 23 (see story on page
40).

❑

The Detroit Film Theatre at the
Detroit Institute of Arts screens
Bethlehem at 7 p.m. Friday and
Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb.
28-March 2; and 9:30 p.m. Friday
and Saturday, and 4:30 p.m. Sunday,
March 7-9. $6.50-$8.50. (313) 833-
4005; dia.org .

February 27 • 2014

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