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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 Trilogy (concIuded by 1998's Yom Yom and 1999's Kadosh), a remarkable trio of films each based in one of lsraeI's thriving metropolises. Making full 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 Tel Aviv men and the city they caIl home.
CompuIsive womanizer Cesar (Assi Dayan, the actor son of IsraeI 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 relationship debris behind him in search of a meaningfuI connection. GoIdman trades his suffocating famiIy responsibilities for a wander through Tel Aviv's hot summer night. Whether paralyzed by seIf-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 colIaborated with Louis MaIle and Jean-Luc Godard, Amos Gitai languorously chronicles the light, space and heat of Tel Aviv in sensuous long takes. Devarim's objective character detaiI and originalIy evoIving narrative became the tempIate for Gitai's subsequent City Trilogy films. 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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