Yom Yom---day after day
At one point, I came to realize how famous Amos Gitai had become of: he is no longer a regional Israeli film maker but the director who enjoys his fame and success in the world cinema. Maybe it was around the time when he made Free Zone starring Natalie Portman that I recognized that he no longer was Gitai the local of Israel but someone whose name was already on the map. Portman sure is the most popular Israeli in the current world come to think of it, and Gitai did not fail to make most of her star quality as the biggest trafficker of audience and to exploit it for otherwise unfavoraby represented area, Middle East . And it was the other day when I was listening to Radio France that I recognized what a long way he had come when I heard Julliette Binoche (ugh) mention his name as the director of her next project nonchalantly. He no longer needs any 'quote Israeli unquote' when people mention him; he is Amos Gitai, period, the introduction's completed.
He used to be an only 'watchable' director from Israel, or so Is he up to the day.
The other day, I revisited his old movie, one of the city trilogy, Yom Yom and discovered some hilarious facts.One of them;
There is a rhetoric that Israeli people frequently employ in films, or in any for of representations. They dismiss any discussion that infers the politics by pointing it out as if that is the rudest behavior. Paradoxically, though, this discovery proves the reality where they dwell upon day by day to me. Their life is fundamentally sustained upon the political suspence that they cannot escape from; the perpetual violence and threat. How to ditach themselves from the reality is something they have to achieve to merely survive. To be indifferent, they try not to talk about politics,as if it will drive the worrisome reality away, so that they can lead their pretty much individualized& nbsp;and cozy lives. The rhetoric in question is frequently employed in Israeli films, and novels. Once you become conscious of it, you can't help but spot one after another to the point it gets overwhelming. This is a tip to discern the representation. When a scene applies the rhetoric, it never fails to be
1) the user of the rhetoric is an Israeli, therefore the one is powerful enough to dictate the discourse on the occasion
2) and 1) says 'no political talk is invited, called for here, so please excuse us...etc.'
3) to avoid any discourse that would make Jewish Israeli side look unnecessarily oppressive
Regarding Yom Yom's case, however, the exact line falls into the every single category above, but the application of his seems highly conscious of the political connotation, therefore, he was using it quite deliberately to make the point of how Israelis are blinded for the fact that they are the cause of the problem.
The scene from Yom Yom is where an Israeli trying to buy a multiply valued land ---sentimentally and practically--- from an unwilling Arab man in Haifa whose Jewish wife recently deceased. It was a small exchange where the Arab man's brother, who was the real estate broker and eager to sell, mentioned that they Arab in Haifa were always tolerant, or even generous, to Jewish mythical view on the Jerusalem even though (he sees) there was no outstanding difference between Arabs and Jews in relation to the land's imagined holiness. On top of it, this was the exact concept that consequently and immediately tormented Palestinians, althogh he does not verbalize it. To respond his remark, the Jewish buyer snaps as saying 'no political talk is necessary here, now' and rushes the Arab owner to sign the contract before the shaky situation becomes even shakier.
How many times did I hear this phrase, discourse or rhetoric in Israeli productions? Most of the time, it is represented as they say it almost unconsciously and automatics out of the habitual speech pattern they fall into. They are not even fighting or defending Jewish rights when they say it. It comes out of a habit and those lines we come across in films are also there when the makers themselve are rather unconscious than being elaborate and/or manipulative. Thus, it is evident how unconscious they are to be the oppressor of the condition in the dynamics. The interesting point is that they believe that they are victims: Victims of violence, holocaust, anti-Semitism or victims of their parents' generations' project that did not come out as good as it was once supposed to be, Zionism.
The case of the movie Yom Yom--the title means 'day after day' in Hebrew BTW---it is employed in a very careful manner and this got me take a mental note initially that it would be worth examining and marking as a good example of the employment of the rhetoric. This was what the director had observed in the locals, therefore he could raise it as a good line to insert, amongst all the serious talks, to form a natural flow of a conversation to reflect how the political dynamics are formed in their speech and rhow it is eenforced day by day (yom yom). But if you have a look even more carefully, you cannot pass it unnoticed that the Arab man's generousity, no matter what he really feels about the politics deep down, whereas the Jewish man can casually dismiss it because he is on the power even though he was in the middle of the act of coersion to buy the land from the unwilling Arab; The Arab man, the brother of the generous real estate broker, has to keep on yielding because that is what it means to have to survive in a place like hifa, Israel, as an Arab, where more Arabs are mingled into Jews. This movie captured the encountering point and who sacrifices more and who lives at the cost of who in the least sentimental manner.