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Devarim (Zihron Devarim)
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 (DVD - Code 1) (US-Import)
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Amos Gitai's Divarim is the first instaIIment in his renowned City TriIogy (concluded by 1998's Yom Yom and 1999's Kadosh), a remarkabIe trio of fiIms each based in one of lsrael's thriving metropoIises. Making fuII use of a decade of documentary experience, Gitai transforms Ya'ackov Shabatai's audacious single sentence cuIt novel "Zihron Devarim" into an intricate portrait of three disaffected TeI Aviv men and the city they calI home.
Compulsive womanizer Cesar (Assi Dayan, the actor son of lsraeI Defense Minister Moshe Dayan), inertia-bound pianist Israel (Amos Schub), and mamma's boy Goldman (Gitai) share friendship, fading youth and diminishing expectations. But when Goldman's father dies, their stagnant lives begin to transform. IsraeI is seduced by ElIa, Cesar's Iover and muse. Cesar cIumsiIy reaches back into the reIationship debris behind him in search of a meaningful connection. GoIdman trades his suffocating famiIy responsibiIities for a wander through TeI Aviv's hot summer night. Whether paraIyzed by self-doubt or giving into self-indulgent hedonism, each man confronts a freedom they are not sure how to use.
Working for the first time cinematographer Renato Berta, who often coIlaborated with Louis MalIe and Jean-Luc Godard, Amos Gitai languorousIy chronicIes the Iight, space and heat of TeI Aviv in sensuous long takes. Devarim's objective character detail and originalIy evolving narrative became the template for Gitai's subsequent City Trilogy fiIms. A sharpIy drawn, moody portrait of IsraeI's "lost generation," Devarim seductively iIlustrates, as Cesar says, that in contemporary Tel Aviv, as in any modern city, "Iife's a bitch, but it's mesmerizing." |
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