Someone is looking at her. She homes in on the gaze. It comes from a reservist, an older one, mid-thirties, maybe. Shaggy dark hair that stands up over his high forehead, with some streaks of gray. His fatigues look as old as he does. Huge grimy red backpack at his feet, though his shoulder still seems to be sagging beneath its weight.
Dear readers,
“Sitra Ahra,” the new installment in my war serial, is now up at the times of Israel. The Talmudic term “sitra ahra,” literally means “the other side,” or figuratively the evil instinct or Satan. In this episode, Etti Badihi, heroic and resolute when it comes to her friend Ruth, displays another side. But it’s more complicated than that, of course.
Please do share with friends and fellow readers if you like it.
The photograph of the rest stop at the Kama intersection in the Negev was taken by Gilad Cohen, the friend of a friend, who lives nearby.
What I’m Watching
Occasionally I tell you about Hebrew books I’m reading, even if they haven’t been translated into English. This time I’m going to tell you about an Israel film I was able to stream thanks to a wonderful resource, the Israel Film Archive. One of the wonderful things they do is put up old and sometimes forgotten films—features, shorts, and documentaries—for streaming, charging small fee to watch.
My eye landed on Dan Wolman’s 1972 feature, Floch. I clicked on it right away for a number of reasons. One is Wolman himself. I saw and was bowled over in 1980 by his Hide and Seek, when I was still new in this country.
Another reason is that Wolman co-wrote the screenplay with Hanoch Levin, widely considered the best playwright in Israeli history. I don’t share that assessment—some of Levin’s plays are simply juvenile to my mind, and there are other playwrights I find more interesting. But his plays do show a real grasp of how to use the theater, and a couple of them are excellent. Levin also has a bit role in the film.
A third reason is that the lead role is played by Avraham Chalfi, one of the great actors in Israeli history, but also a great poet whose work I feel a close affinity to (I’ve quotes passages from his poems in some of my stories). Until this movie, I never saw him act, and it was worth seeing.
It’s an absurdist black comedy in black and white, in the New Wave tradition, with narrative and cinematographic touches that remind me of Goddard and also of Orson Wells. Chalfi plays Floch, an old Ashkenazi immigrant who loses his only son and grandson in a car accident. He decides that he must have a new child, so he divorces his wife (who plays her part powerfully) and goes in search of a young woman to marry. He falls for a trickster who leads him on. In a poignant final scene, alone and bereft, he walks into the home of strangers because he feels he must be with people, but then misbehaves and is kicked out. The story itself is less important than the mood of absurdity and loneliness and grief that pervades it as a whole.
I glanced at some contemporary reviews—apparently it was well-received and represented Israel the Venice film festival. But I had never heard of it up until now.
Unfortunately for non-Hebrew speakers, there are no English subtitles in this version. Maybe it’s available elsewhere with subtitles—if one of you finds it, please let me know.
Besorot tovot,
Haim