Controversial winner of the Special Jury Prize at Locarno, Nadav Lapid's daring, dialectical debut will divide audiences, irrespective of religion or nationality.
Lapid's direction is as confident as Yaron, member of an elite Israeli anti-terrorist unit tasked to deal with “the Arab enemy” with blind eyes and the flash of violence. In the first of the film's distinct halves, Lapid shows Yaron and his colleagues at rest, their lives a blustering parody of soldierly machismo, literally wrestling each other as their pregnant wives sit in the background. But they're under investigation for a raid gone wrong; in danger of suspension, they pin it on a terminally ill colleague. The film's verbally driven second chapter introduces us to a second dedicated group, whose philosophical leader is Shira, the self-appointed poet of a new revolution. Her ideology is rooted in the disgust at economic oppression, but her group's purity is less than it seems, and threatened by sexual tensions. The revolutionaries represent a side of Israel foreign not only to Yaron, but to the paradigm of national cinema Lapid is confronting--one where Jew is rarely pitted against Jew. Words move into action, and a tense standoff brings the groups together in an inevitable, abrupt conclusion. Seemingly ripped from the headlines (Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat has asked Israel Film Council Chairman Nissim Abouloff to hold off on a decision to restrict the film to viewers 18 and above), Lapid's hot-button point is that the divisions cleaving Israeli society lie deeper than the Palestinian issue--they involve class, gender and generation--and that reflection, not blind action, is crucial for reconciliation.