Presented by IsraFest Foundation, Inc., the Israel Film Festival runs Saturday through Thursday, April 29 through May 4, at Water Tower, 175 E. Chestnut. Tickets for most programs are $8.50, $5.50 for seniors; weekday shows before 6 PM are $6. Festival passes, good for five screenings, not including special events, are $35. For more information call 312-297-4886 or 877-966-5566.
Vulcan Junction
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An expatriate Israeli playwright (Sharon Alexander) leaves Paris to return to the port city of Haifa and care for his ailing mother. He often tells convenient lies, hiding his mother’s true illness from her or embellishing her dying words to his callous sister, and much of this 1999 drama focuses on his inability to come to terms with his feelings regarding his career, his family relations, and his estranged lover. Alexander, a skilled actor and a veteran of Israeli film, communicates the weight of the son’s filial duty through his anguished expressions and tense movements, and the touching chats between mother and son indicate a powerful sense of emotional obligation. But director Yitzhak Ruben never exposes the source of the character’s moroseness, nor does the constant juxtaposing of his present emptiness with the breakup of his romance reveal much. (TS) 90 min. (1:00)
Yana’s Friends
Borders and Chamara–A Place Out of Life
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s 1999 documentary focuses on a Polish veteran of World War II who survived the concentration camp at Dachau and has remained in the town to bear witness. 50 min. (7:30)
This 1999 TV documentary introduces us to opera conductor Daniel Oren, who rose to fame in Italy and Israel and holds himself up as an exemplar of Arab-Israeli heritage. Oren’s father is descended from a wealthy Yemeni tribe, while his strong-willed mother came from an Orthodox Jewish family; except for a common interest in their son’s musical education, the parents didn’t get along. The film’s interviews are woven into a story line of Oren preparing to conduct a lavish Franco Zeffirelli production of La boheme in Tel Aviv. The low-grade backstage footage is suspenseful and revealing, but the parallel between Mimi dying in Rodolfo’s arms and Oren cradling his gravely ill mother is a bit much. Director Asher Tlalim doesn’t probe too deeply into Oren’s ambivalence toward his devoted mother, and his uncritical look at the maestro’s rise would have warmed mama’s heart. (TS) 62 min. On the same program, Four Friends (1999), Ester Dar’s documentary about four college roommates in the 1930s–two Jews and two Palestinians–who are reunited in 1998. 61 min. (3:00)
