arts & life
Viviane (Ronit Elkabetz) in Gett.
The Israeli divorce
process goes on
trial in Gett.
Siblings Ronit and Shlomi
Elkabetz directed the film.
Gett: The Trial of Viviane
Amsalem, written and
directed by Shlomi and
Ronit Elkabetz, screens at
the Detroit Film Theatre
at the Detroit Institute of
Arts April 3-12.
(313) 833-4005; dia.org .
1
Michael Fox
Special to the Jewish News
he marvelously claus-
trophobic and deeply
damning Israeli court-
room drama Gett: The Trial of
Viviane Amsalem actually con-
sists of three trials.
Seeking a divorce after
some 30 years, Viviane aims
to cast her husband, Elisha, as
the defendant. However, the
government-funded religious
court vested with authority over
Jewish divorces won't grant a
gett (a Jewish divorce document
that a husband must present to
his wife) without the husband's
consent — and the triumvirate
of Orthodox rabbis insists it has
limited power to pressure him.
As a result, it often feels as
if Viviane (rivetingly played by
co-director Ronit Elkabetz) is on
trial. And because the process
seems arbitrary and unfairly
skewed in favor of the husband
(the taciturn, unwavering Simon
Abkarian), the film explicitly puts
the system itself on trial.
"Our work is very political;
says Shlomi Elkabetz, who co-
wrote and co-directed the film
with his sister Ronit. "Gett is a
protest film:'
Gett: The Trial of Viviane
Amsalem will be screened at the
DIAs Detroit Film Theatre April
3-12.
The Elkabetzes come from a
Moroccan Sephardic background,
and were born in Beersheba and
raised around Haifa.
"We did not have any connec-
tion whatsoever to the cultural
centers in Israel [growing up[:'
Elkabetz said during a visit to
San Francisco last fall. "We did
not have any access, not by our
family members and not by the
surroundings of the places we
grew up in:'
As outsiders who had to push
and elbow their way into Israel's
Ashkenazi-dominated cultural
hierarchy, they take great sat-
isfaction in Gett's Ophir Award
(Israel's equivalent of the Oscar)
for Best Picture and selection
as Israel's official submission to
the Oscars in the Best Foreign
Language Film category although
it did not receive a nomination.
The film's structure and setup
are simple and powerful: Viviane
wants a divorce, and her husband
says no.
"Just like that there is huge sus-
pense because we identify with
the wish of Viviane to be free
Elkabetz says. "The dream of the
modern world is freedom. She
wants [what] all of us want:'
The corollary to rooting for
Viviane is that the other charac-
ters assume the cloak of villains.
But the filmmakers made a con-
certed effort to imbue Gett with
nuance and ambiguity, which
makes for a more interesting,
provocative and rich work.
"[Ronit and I] don't judge
Viviane; we do not judge Elisha,
nor the judges and we do not
judge [Viviane's] advocate
Elkabetz says. "Everybody has his
place for performing their inte-
rior life and making it exterior
in that little theater of the court.
Everybody is respected by us, the
storytellers:'
Gett marks the third and final
chapter of an exceptional tril-
ogy that began, in the very first
scene of To Take a Wife (2004),
with Viviane's seven brothers
discouraging her from rocking
the boat and seeking a divorce.
Shiva (Seven Days), set a few
years after Viviane has left Elisha
and released in 2008, reunites the
extended family for a funeral.
Shiva also won the Ophir for
Best Picture, so the attention
and respect of their peers is not
a brand-new experience for the
Elkabetzes. One gets the feel-
ing that Shlomi and Ronit (who
might be familiar to moviegoers
from The Band's Visit), a gay man
and a woman, respectively, are
fueled by the role of underdogs.
For his part, Shlomi wants
to make accessible films that
provoke audience reactions and,
ideally, promote societal change.
Intense and often intensely
absurd, the beautifully crafted
and acted Gett hits every mark.
"If I go to all this trouble, I
want people to be aware of the
film:' Elkabetz says. "Part of my
attraction in cinema is to try to
make cinema that does not give
up filmmaking. I'm not trying to
flatter anyone but to be strict and
radical and at the same time to
be popular. Is it possible? I don't
know"
Elkabetz laughs, at himself and
the test he has set for himself.
Consider it Gett's fourth trial.
❑
March 26 • 2015
59