Israeli film man attacks ‘aggressive’ countrymen over their Holocaust obsession

Jewish Telegraph, July 2005

ISRAELI film director Eytan Fox believes that his fellow countrymen have become aggressors because they can’t get over the Holocaust.
Eytan is currently promoting his latest film, Walk on Water, which has become the highest grossing Israeli film in North America.
He said: “Israel is important to me. I care about it tremendously but I’m not thinking about changing people’s attitudes with my films.
“I am very concerned about the political situation in Israel. I strongly believe that Israelis are so obsessed with the Holocaust and their status as victims it makes them blind to the fact they themselves have become aggressors, imposing pain and suffering on the Palestinians.”
Eytan, who is currently preparing for his next film in the south of France, added: “I believe that the first step in helping Israelis understand how cruel they have become lies in making some kind of peace with their own traumatic past.
“Since I am very interested in masculinity and Israel is a very masculine society I decided to tell a story in which a man gets to confront his inner feelings and he changes through confronting and processing the most frightening event of his past.”
Walk On Water, Eytan’s third film, is the story of Mossad hitman Eyal. His newest mission is to track down ex-Nazi officer Alfred Himmelman who is rumoured to still be alive.
Eyal spies on Himmelman’s granddaughter, now living in Israel after turning her back on her family in Germany. Eyal poses as a tour guide and takes her brother Axel from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea.
When Axel returns to Germany, the Mossad suspects that Himmelman could come out of hiding for a birthday party. Eyal is sent to Berlin to infiltrate the family.
“When long-time producer Gal Uchovsky and I started to work on the script, I knew that of all Israeli actors I wanted Lior Ashkenazi for the lead role,” American-born Eytan said.
“I met him and we started talking about the film and with time he became more like the role and the role became more like him. It was a very interesting process.
“With the German actors it was a standard audition. I met many young actors and actresses in Berlin, took the cassettes back to Israel and we all agreed that Knut Berger and Carolia Peters were our favourites. They not only acted in the film but also spent time in Israel with us and worked on the script. They made sure that their German characters were accurate.”
Eytan spoke to former Mossad agents for research “but only on an informal basis,” he said.
“As for the reaction, some former Mossad members saw the film and did not like the Mossad parts. They thought we didn’t portray it glamorously enough. To them the Mossad looked too clumsy, too ordinary, like post office workers and definitely not like heroes. I think that’s a compliment.”
Eytan was born in New York City and emigrated to Israel as a child. He grew up in Jerusalem and after serving in the army, studied at Tel Aviv University’s School of Film and Television.
His first film, Time Off, a 45-minute drama about sexual identity in the Israeli army, won the Movie Of the Year Award in 1990 at the Israeli Film Institute, first prize in Munich’s International Student Film Festival.
Eytan’s debut feature, Song of the Siren, was a romantic comedy about life in Tel Aviv during the first Gulf War. It was the biggest box office film of 1994 in Israel.
He then turned to television and created Florentine, a drama series that examined the life of young people in Tel Aviv before and after Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination.
The series won first prize at the Jerusalem International Film Festival 1997 in the television category.
His 1998 musical drama, Gotta Have Heart, was made for Israel’s Channel 2 and was widely shown at film festivals throughout Europe and America. It won the Best Short Prize at the 1999 New York NewFest Film Festival.
Three years ago, he directed Yossi & Jagger, the true story of a gay love affair between two Israeli officers in a remote army base on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Eytan said: “I try not to think of audiences at all when I make my films. I try to do my own thing and tell my stories, deal with characters and the ideas I care about. I hope if things are done this way, they will find an audience.”
He added: “The past has a very important role in young people’s lives everywhere. I made a movie about young people who just want to live and have fun and think they are free and different from their parents, but actually they are haunted by the past, and in order to really become free, they have to make peace with it.”
Eytan revealed that when he screened the film in Paris he was “afraid because of the way the French think about Israel”. He said: “There were some students there who had their attitudes changed by the film. One student told me that he hated Israel but this was the first time he realised he hadn’t been getting the complete picture. I want people to care about Israel.”
Of the multiple locations used for Walk on Water, Eytan said: “It was more expensive filming in three different countries. It was complicated in all kinds of logisitc coordination. But I think it gives the movie a great scope.
“You start in beautiful Istanbul, then you travel around Israel, the Sea of Galillee, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem and then to Berlin. Three different climates, different atmospheres, different moods, I think it adds a lot and gives the film a more epic feeling.”
He feels that the fact that 80 per cent of Walk on Water is in English has helped at the US box office as Americans are notorious for not liking subtitled films.
“Language is an excuse people use,” he said. “Physically it is an Israeli story, but it has universal themes — identity questions and sexual questions.”
Eytan admits that the success of his previous films does put him under pressure but he tries not to let it affect his work.
“Otherwise the wrong influences get into the work,” he said. “You start to think, ‘Is the next film going to be Jewish enough?’
“If you make movies like that, it is wrong.”
He added: “When I hear the box office figures and read the reviews, I sometimes think it is too much. I’m just happy about the success.
“I love as many people as possible to see my films, not just Jewish people. I want to reach as many people as I can who don’t know these worlds.
“I’m happy that I can bring Israel to those who don’t know it.”
Eytan’s next film, The Bubble, will deal directly with the Israel-Palestine question.
“It’s terrible we have so little to do with Palestinians,” he said. “Actors tend to be people who are open-minded and liberal. They will be at the forefront of new dialogue.”
Palestinian actor Yousef Sweid, who stars in Walk on Water, will take a leading role in love story The Bubble.
Don’t expect Eytan to be directing the next Harry Potter film or Hollywood blockbuster.
He said: “My success has brought a lot of attention from people in Los Angeles. But I want to carry on doing my own thing — Israeli films.
“Although if I was offered a wonderful film with Meryl Streep, then I’d consider it.”