Kadosh, Amos Gitai's latest film, which was selected for the Cannes
Festival, has recently been shown nationwide in Israel. Although
the whole action takes place within a very religious family, living
in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, the
film is, first and foremost, a marvelous love story revolving
around two sisters, brilliantly played by Yael Abecassis and Meital
Barda. There is the love of the older sister Rivka for her husband
Meir, the love of the younger sister Malka for her lover Ya'acov
and, finally, there is the love the two sisters bear each other.
There is also the unstinting adherence by these characters to the
strict rules of this religious community, rules that posit an
absolute observance of the rabbi's dictums.
"My first film, House, was already censored by the Israeli TV,
which had commissioned it in the first place. It tells the story of
a house in Jerusalem, inhabited before 1948 by a Palestinian family
and later by a Jewish Israeli family. Asked to make cuts in order
to attenuate the political repercussion, I refused. My career at
the Israeli TV was thus over," says Amos Gitai, adding, "it is this
attempt at censorship and my rejection of it that were decisive for
my filmmaking career." Before then, he was still not certain that
he wanted to make films, professionally. After all, he was an
architect, the son of a renowned architect, belonging to the
Bauhaus School. Amos Gitai, who was born in Haifa (Israel) in 1950,
seemed predestined to walk in his father's footsteps. He graduated
from the school of architecture at the Technion in Haifa, then
obtained a doctorate in architecture at the University of Berkeley
in California. But something along the way made him change course.
This "something" is multidimensional, but the main dimension was no
doubt his Israeli experience.
Amos Gitai was profoundly marked by his military service and by
Israeli repression in the occupied Palestinian territories. He was
part of an elite unit, Sayeret Egoz, and was wounded in the
Lebanese war in 1982. He then produced A Campaign Diary, a film
that was also rejected by the Israeli TV as well as by Israeli
distributors. These, while not contesting his talent, explained
gently to him that they were not ready to continue banging their
heads against a wall. So, in 1983, Amos Gitai left with his family
for Paris. There he stayed ten years, producing film after film -
first documentaries, then fiction - in total, fifteen, often
achieving recognition in international festivals. In 1993, he
returned home where he filmed a trilogy focused on the three big
cities of Israel: Dvarim (Things) in Tel Aviv, Yom Yom (Day after
Day) in Haifa, and Kadosh (Sacred) in Jerusalem.
"Cinema cannot change reality, but it can sensitize people, and
make them comprehend the situation of the Other, the person facing
us who is often ignored or regarded with disdain," says the Israeli
filmmaker. Is Amos Gitai then a committed director? Undoubtedly,
but not in the literal, vulgar sense of the word. He does not make
films that aim to prove a thesis. "Didacticism horrifies me," he
says. His commitment gives expression to the rhythm of people's
lives, to their aspirations, often contradictory, often
diametrically opposed and painfully enmeshed in the complex Israeli
reality. To begin with, Gitai is committed on the side of his
characters, creatures of flesh and blood, in love, often cruel,
devoted, generous, but also - as in life - liars and weaklings.
Then Gitai does not conform to the taste of the day. Eroticism,
sexuality are very present in his films, including Kadosh, but not
to the detriment of feelings or the thirst for an authentic,
totally consuming love relationship.