“All the Trees Blow in the Wind” by Tomer Heiman was presented at the Dokaviv 2021 Festival and picked up the directing and photography awards there. Now Heiman’s film, “I am not,” which is essentially the same film with a name change, is coming to the screens. It is not customary to rename a film after it has already been revealed to the public, certainly not after it has won awards, but Heiman says he has complied with the film’s protagonist, Oren Levy, who also receives credit as a photographer for extensive parts of the film (marked by a frame illustration). To reward.
Tomer Heiman (“Mr. Gaga”, “Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life”) is one of the most successful documentary filmmakers in the country, and this time he returns to where he started. He became famous in 2001 when he released “Tomer and the Scratches”, in which he documented himself and the group of boys he had been guiding for a year. Also in “I am not” the subject of his film is not a famous person, but a boy he met during a film workshop he gave at a boarding school for boys with problems. During the film, which was shot over about three years, the boy undergoes a change that the creators could not have foreseen, and this contributes to the intensity of the emotions that the film evokes.
Oren was born in Guatemala and his mother gave him up for adoption in infancy. After several years of happiness, his Israeli parents – Deborah and Ehud – noticed that the beautiful boy was behaving differently than expected for children his age, and took him to a series of diagnoses. The experts determined that it was epilepsy, and then said that it was other things. The last diagnosis he lives with while Tomer becomes acquainted with him is Asperger’s Syndrome. Oren claims that he is not like that (hence the name of the film) but we see him behaving aggressively towards his loving parents and refusing any contact, and it seems that something about him is not properly tuned. It’s a challenging protagonist, making it difficult for viewers to like him, and the first part of the film evokes compassion for the good parents who try so hard, and remind him to take the drugs. Although this is not the creator’s intention, it illustrates a picture of the potential problematic of adopting children from third world countries.
everything stays in the family. “I do not”. Photo: Itai Raziel
Michal, Oren’s sister, was also adopted from Guatemala shortly after, and she looks more stable. But in one scene she sheds her parents’ pain at the fact that her non-Israeli appearance always provokes unpleasant reactions. They try to encourage her and say that they also look different, but in fact that is how they deny her personal experience, which hurts her even more. It’s a tear-jerking scene that puts a finger on a seemingly unsolvable difficulty, and it’s sad that Michal stays on the sidelines most of the time.
During the workshop Oren starts filming his home and family (lots of close-ups and some calculated camera movements) and also starts dreaming with a workshop friend about writing a screenplay for a full-length feature film, and that dream seems completely disconnected from reality. But then Oren, Michal and their parents get ready for a trip to Guatemala, to meet the biological mothers, and the film changes course. Oren wants to go to his Guatemalan mother alone, in order to understand where he came from and why he gave up on him. He also intends to make a film about the encounter, and refuses to tell his mother that he has Asperger’s. When he arrives in the village he discovers an abject poverty, one that is almost hard to imagine, and suddenly among his original family members he seems to become a different, more peaceful, more mature person. A person who hugs. At the same time, but briefly, Michal’s visit to her mother is also shown. The visit to Guatemala, where Oren learns a variety of things about himself and his family, is enlightening and very exciting. It sheds a different light on the first part of the film, raising new questions about what defines a family, and what produces belonging.
4 stars
Directed by: Tomer Heiman. Israel / Guatemala 2021, 100 min
“I am not” is screened semi-regularly at Lev Cinema, and after some of the screenings there is a meeting with the director, and sometimes also with Oren or Michal (details on the cinema website).