“And It’s Morning” is a movie about closure. Had we been told that the film was written and filmed following the corona closures of 2020, it would have made perfect sense. But the reality is the opposite: Eran Kolirin’s “And Be Morning” was filmed before the corona, which fairly delayed his departure, and is based on Sayed Kashua’s 2004 book. The film also presents itself as a futuristic, speculative, pre-utopian work: “Not far from here, shortly before peace comes,” reads the film’s opening title. “And Be Morning” is a film about a hero who has lived all his life with a desire to escape from his family: from his parents, from his wife, from where he came from – and then comes a closure, a kind of biblical destiny, straight from fantasy films, imprisoning him where he most wants to be, his childhood home .
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Kashua created a portrait of the village he came from, of his family and especially of himself as someone who could not decide which world he would prefer to live in until the choice was forced on him, adding a political element to his fantasy – what grounded the hero in the village was a mysterious IDF closure. Due to unexplained operational activity.
But for the sake of the story, the reason for the closure is secondary and so, theoretically, “And Be Morning” contains a plot core that can be processed almost anywhere in the world, and after the corona will also be well understood: an absurd story about a human microcosm stuck for several days together in a pressure cooker , And where the characters will have to deal with everything they chose to repress and run away from until that moment.
The political angle of the film, and the fact that its actors used its platforms for political protests, created an antagonism towards the film on the Israeli right without seeing it. Do not let racist propaganda prevent you from rejoicing in the cinematic wonder, because it is a beautiful, brilliant, discerning film, funny in its opening, heartbreaking at the end and evocative throughout, and is nothing short of a masterpiece.
In all his films, the more accessible and the more abstract ones, Collierin is a wizard in describing relationships between family members and strangers. He is a master of small gestures. Communication between his characters is often done in silences, pauses, glances, raising an eyebrow, tilting his head. Kashua has come up with a brilliant plot idea, but the adaptation of Kolirin is a thought-provoking craft of human insights.
Kolirin also presents the Israeli audience with a tribute, or introduction, to the signed and multi-ironic cinema of Ilya Suleiman, the exiled Christian director, who created in his hometown three of the most excellent films directed by an Israeli-Palestinian director. Including the white stain of first gray hair that grows in the protagonist’s hair, and which has become Suleiman’s hallmark in his films, the cast and partners of a similar production (including family members).
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Right: Jonah Suleiman and Alex Bakri in “And Be Morning.” Everyone lives in some kind of prison
(Photo: Shai Goldman)
In “And Be Morning” Alex Bakri plays the character of Sammy, who came with his wife and son to his brother’s wedding in the village, and got stuck there. He is the most successful of the village, the one who left it and moved to Jerusalem and found a high-tech job with the Jews. On the other hand, there are Palestinians from the territories, who are working on the construction of the houses, and are staying in the village illegally. They are the step-brothers and the rejected, the ones that the villagers fear and be like them. And in the middle are the politicians and criminals, who are trying to leverage the situation and start a war around the question of who will be the boss. Among all the characters ranged the service taxi of Abed, Sammy’s childhood friend, the one Sammy was embarrassed by, the one who was left behind and had not achieved much of his life. There is nowhere to go, but the service taxi continues to wander the alleys of the village, picking up passengers who are just getting on for the roundabout, and hearing Sia’s “chandelier” on the way. Sami avoids his parents, who build him a house so that he can return to the village and live next to them. The father, Salim Dow, in a delicate and brilliant role, looks at him with a heartbroken look; The mother, Isabel Ramadan, also has few words and looks into the distance, but it is clear that she is the one who understands well what is happening to everyone, and keeps their secret from her.
It’s a film about men and masculinity, but through the wise look of the woman who looks at them and recognizes their weaknesses and their pretensions: the son who is afraid of his wedding night with his wife, the son who betrays his wife, the gangster who waves guns to make an impression, the cowardly friend And sacrifice.
Among all the hurtful, hurtful and hurtful characters, notice the character of the construction worker who plays a natural suit – the secret treasure among the Israeli, Arab or Jewish actors – who has already stolen the show in “The Orchestra’s Visit” and stunned in “Tikkun”. He plays the character, who hides from everyone’s eyes, but whose job it is to convey to the hero the message of the whole film: whether you are an Arab from the territories persecuted by the authorities, or a successful high-tech who does not like his wife and is afraid to tell his father he does not want to live in the house he builds. In some prison. So what does it matter what prison you are in. He is the one who opens the hero’s eyes to the tragedies of his condition – which is not related to the presentation to the boss or the IDF soldier, but is related to his own passivity.
The prison, cage and bars are the visual motifs that accompany the film throughout. The film begins with a photo taken from a cage, the point of view of pigeons that are supposed to fly solemnly at the end of a wedding ceremony, but they refuse to fly. Like them, so are the characters in the film: stuck in a cage and not always aware of it, and when they can go free, they do not know how to do it. Thus, in a rare and brilliant combination of comedy and tragedy, between political drama and family melodrama, Eran Kolirin creates a wonderful and brilliant film, unparalleledly exciting, full of moments of miraculous absurdity, about characters who want to escape but do not know where and where.