manNIR’S BROKEN WINGS PROVIDE NO ESCAPE
Jewish Telegraph, June 2003
ISRAELI film director Nir Bergman did not make his latest film as escapism for his fellow countrymen.
In fact, Broken Wings — although not about terrorism — could depress Israelis more as it deals with economical problems and hardship.
‘‘If Israelis want to use the cinema to escape problems they should go and see an American film and not Broken Wings,’’ Nir said.
‘‘It’s a film about grief. The father dies from a bee sting, not as a war hero.’’
Broken Wings has been a huge hit at film festivals around the world. In addition to winning nine Israeli Academy Awards in 2002, the film has won prizes at festivals in Berlin, Tokyo, Jerusalem and Palm Springs.
Broken Wings, which opened to great reviews in Britain this week, is the story of a family in emotional and financial turmoil after the death of their father.
Dafna and her four children become increasingly estranged from each another. Five year-old Bar suffers from feelings of abandonment, while 10-year-old Ido attempts to break the world record in the free jump — into an empty swimming pool.
Teenage son, Yair, refuses to go back to school, preferring to spend his time dressed as a mouse distributing leaflets in the metro.
Maya, 17, harbours feelings of anger and guilt as she is obliged to take on the role of surrogate mother to the younger children.
As the day progresses, an unexpected incident begins to pull them in the same direction, giving them a vestige of hope and a chance to heal their broken hearts.
Haifa-born Nir fell in love with the cinema as a child.
‘‘I wasn’t like a kid who went every day,’’ he says. ‘‘I was actually more into basketball. I grew up in a small provincial place and I used to go to the cinema to escape.’’
He admits lying about his age to sneak into films like The Wall and Christiane F, while he saw Ordinary People ‘‘millions of times. I knew it off by heart’’.
Aged 22, Nir studied cinema at university and realised that film was to be his career. He attended the Jerusalem Film School and then studied in New York.
Nir started writing Broken Wings in 1998, but didn’t have the money to film it. The film was eventually finished in July 2002 on a very small budget.
‘‘We did around 30 days of filming and it cost $650,000, which is quite low,’’ he said.
‘‘The waiting around for money was horrible. I saw all my classmates making waves in television and I was sitting there like a dumbass waiting for money from the government.’’
Of making films in Israel, Nir admits that the technicians know their jobs much better than the directors.
He said: ‘‘In the 1980s, Americans made films over here and used our technicians, so they have the experience. It’s very rare for a director to make three feature films in Israel. It’s easy to make a movie of the week for a television station, but the government needs to give funds for cinema.’’
Nir admits that when he was making Broken Wings, the success of the film was far from his mind.
‘‘We (Nir and proudcer Assaf Amir) wanted to make a film that we would like to see. We thought if we did that we will have an audience. It’s a private film that comes from true pain. We wanted to make a film similar to Ken Loach’s films.’’
Nir is currently working on a new script but ‘‘I have two babies now and I’m having to find time between changing nappies’’.
And he claims he will never be lured by the Yankee dollar to make films in America.
‘‘My roots are strongly in Israel,’’ he said. ‘‘I have no dreams to make a film in America. My budgets in Israel will get bigger — although not by much. The writing is the hardest part — having to fill empty pages.’’
Broken Wings stars veteran actress Orli Zilverschatz and Israel’s Harry Potter, Daniel Magon.
The actor has dubbed films like 101 Dalmations, Pokemon and Harry Potter into Hebrew.
Danny Niv makes his debut in the the film. Danny’s band, Shabaks, were responsible for introducing Hebrew rap to Israel.
