The 11th edition of the Arava Film Festival will open on Wednesday in Moshav Tzukim, where an open-air cinema complex will be built, and every evening films will be screened there after the stars come out, which blend well with the desert landscape: in previous years, “Lawrence of Arabia” and Serge’s Westerns were screened there Yo Leona, and this year you can go down to the desert to watch Bernardo Bertolucci’s spectacular “Heaven Protects Above” (1990), in which John Malkovich and Debra Winger get lost in the desert, well lit by cinematographer Vittorio Storro and produced by Jeremy Thomas, to be hosted at the festival. “Calcalist” lists some of the highlights that should not be missed this year.
Nori Bilga Jaylon. One of the most excellent directors active today—the Turkish Nuri Bilga Ceylon—will visit the festival and present an exhibition of his photographs and six of his films. His last three films are the most beautiful in this group, and they require time, attention and patience, so that visiting the festival can become a retreat of cinematic vipassana: “There were times in Antalya” is the masterpiece of the group, a slow, contemplative detective crime drama that unfolds with patience, and is filmed in the arid landscapes of South Turkey; “Winter Sleep”, for which Jaylon won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, is filmed in the historical city of Cappadocia, and deals with an actor and writer who runs an isolated and remote hotel in a sort of self-imposed exile from life. A small stone, which shatters the windshield of his car, creates a chain of events that forces him to face the society into which he is exiled, and where he is not really welcomed; “The Wild Pear Tree”, Jaylon’s latest film so far, is the most abstract and challenging of his films, but it is a must watch: a film full of words, but one that cannot take your eyes off its beauty, and which tells the story of several characters, about their frustration and their failures.
For those who want to start with Jaylon’s more accessible films, you should start with “Three Monkeys”, one of his better known films, which is a powerful and intense melodrama, or with “Climates”, Jaylon’s most personal film.
“Ahh”. Poland’s representative for the Oscars, and winner of a special award at the last Cannes Film Festival, is the new film of the 84-year-old director Jerzy Skolimowski, who has moved over the years between a career in his homeland and a career in England. In his new film, he returns to Poland and shoots one of the most beautiful films of the year, a journey story of a donkey, which begins as a circus animal. When the circus goes out of business and protesters call for the release of the animals in it, the donkey begins to wander from station to station, and we see through his eyes (and also through his dreams) the human reality he sees around him.
In “Eah” there is an obvious inspiration from “Balthazar” (1966) by Robert Bresson, which was a kind of Christian Passion fable in which a donkey was a type of modern Jesus. But this film – which is a visual and musical journey, without much words – is an innocent and silent testimony of an animal devoid of nobility, who sees the sad state of humanity in Europe of the 21st century. This is one of the most beautiful and unusual films seen this year.
“The worst”. From a film by a veteran creator to a debut film made in Belgium, which won a commendation at the last Haifa festival. “The worst” is apparently a rough realistic social drama about children who grow up in a harsh reality of poverty and violence. But in practice it is a fascinating project that creates quite a few mirages at the expense of its realism. It begins with a scene of auditions for children who are auditioning for a film that is about children like them. Then the film is both a drama about these children and a film that tells about the shooting of the film in which they participate, three layers of reality in the film, which initially looks like a documentary project and gradually the fact that it is all staged, but also all realistic, is revealed. And in the midst of all this are the children and boys (and girls) who honestly find it difficult to understand how they manage to play so well, as characters and as actors playing in the film. More than this is a film about reality, it is a film about the cinema and the manipulations it does, its actors and viewers.
“The road to Eilat”. Yona Rosenkiar’s second film (“The Dive”), which was produced with the support of the Arava Film Festival and the Arava Film Fund founded on the initiative of the festival, won this year’s Israeli Film Award at the Jerusalem Festival and was nominated for the Ophir Award in the best film category. Its plot takes place on Route 90, which passes near the festival complex, so here too there is a fascinating connection between the plot of the film and the location where it is screened. Shmuel Wilozheni (winner of the Ophir Award for Supporting Actor of the Year) plays an aging and grumpy father who sets out on a journey on a tractor from the Upper Galilee to Eilat, visiting various stations along the way and having arguments with his son who accompanies him. Thanks to Vilozheni, this is an entertaining and touching film, which if you have to watch it, then certainly on the way to Eilat.