Review round-up of Israeli drama, comedy and documentary

This year as the UK Jewish Film Festival goes online, enabling so many of us to watch virtually, I’ve been able to indulge in the special pleasure and stimulation of watching what UKJFF has on offer from the comfort of my sofa, munching kosher popcorn throughout. For this review round-up, I've selected three films from Israel – a drama, a comedy and a documentary that are all enjoying their UK premieres – to show just how wide ranging the Israeli film industry is.

Breaking Bread ★★★★
Dir. Beth Elise Hawk, Sunday 15 November, 4.30pm

First off, the spotlight is on food (just as well I’ve got that popcorn!) as we get to visit the A-Sham Arab Food Festival in Haifa, where pairs of Arab and Jewish chefs collaborate on local dishes. Our guide is festival founder Dr Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, the first Muslim Arab to win Israel’s MasterChef TV competition, and she’s on a quest to make social change through food.

As well as tickling the taste buds, this film is a real eye opener and an object lesson in how Arabs and Jews can unite over food. Haifa has a reputation as the coexistence capital of the region, so perhaps it’s not surprising to find Arab and Jewish chefs and restaurant owners sharing recipes – often the cherished secrets of family businesses – and even visiting each other’s busy kitchens to learn on the job as honorary sous chefs. Kreplach or qatayef, what impresses is the presentation, colours and sheer artistry of lovingly arranging food on a plate, an act repeated many times each day for eager and appreciative customers from Israel and around the world.

Why is the festival called A-Sham? The film includes a map that shows it’s the Arabic (so older) name for the Levant (from medieval French for ‘rising’), an area that covers Israel/Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, parts of Turkey and the Sinai peninsula – so a perfect symbol for how recipes, the tastes and smells of delicious dishes, transcend borders. Warning: eat before you view!

Asia ★★★★
Dir. Ruthy Pribar, Tuesday 17 November, 7.30pm

This moving and nuanced family drama pulls no punches as it follows a mother/daughter relationship that presents challenges above and beyond those you might expect to be faced by a 30-something single mum and a teenager. Asia (Alena Yiv) has immigrated to Israel from Russia, where she left daughter Vika’s father who, she tells the girl, did at least give her “the only thing I ever got from a man…you”. She works 12-hour shifts on a Jerusalem geriatric ward, where she manages to empathise with her elderly charges, which just about leaves her enough energy for hurried car sex with fellow émigré and married senior colleague Stas, and late-night drinking sessions.

So young Vika gets short shrift and at first sight it’s not surprising to find her drinking and taking drugs with mates at the local skate park. Until, that is, she collapses and lands up in hospital and you realise she's suffering from a degenerative disorder that's catching up with her. It’s here that the film becomes so much more than a snapshot of life among Russian immigrants (the dialogue is in Russian as well as Hebrew). It's clear that Vika has been holding her fate at bay by trying to be a ‘normal’ teenager, so her face has a haunted look that seems to have become part of her personality. As played by the luminous Shira Haas (Unorthodox), she is spiky and vulnerable at the same time and likely to break hearts, but not as an adolescent might hope.

After an episode at a nightclub where mother and daughter fail to bond, her daughter’s condition worsens and she becomes a wheelchair user, Asia finally steps up. She tries to pre-empt Vika’s needs, getting a young male co-worker to take on shifts as her carer. It would be wrong to go much further into the story, but suffice it to say that the narrative shifts a gear towards closure for both mother and daughter and I for one was left impressed by the storytelling and the performances.

Mossad! ★★★★
Dir. Alon Gur Aryeh, Sunday 8 November, 7.30pm

If you binge watch the spy thrillers that are a staple of Israeli and US TV (think Fauda or Homeland), if you’re up for a good laugh and you love parody (like Airplane, whose writer/director David Zucker was consultant here), then Mossad is for you. From the opening credits, filmgoers who are sore that Bond has chosen to die another year will be comforted by the pastiche.

The action begins with a lissom young, not quite undercover agent, thinly disguised by the headscarf under which her hair blows free, keeping a wary rendezvous with our hero, agent Guy Moran (Fauda’s Tsahi Halevi). And it gets better (or should that be worse?) as no cliché is left unearned. In no time, refusing her offer of safe passage through the sewers with a breezy, “It’s much more fun to go through the bad guys”, he is powering through would-be assassins coming at him from all sides, only to take cover Ali Baba-style sliding headfirst into a handy barrel.

If you miss a gag, don’t worry – better than buses, another two will arrive in seconds. Subtle it isn’t, but I did love the homage to Hitchcock, as a tannoy announcing a security alert, with the reassurance that Israeli forces are on it, has guests rush screaming from a reception to the strains of the string quartet playing the theme from Psycho. Then there’s the taxi driver, with his cheery cry of “You need to get to the Mossad? No problem!” as he takes his fare directly to their not very secret HQ.

The plot? Well, that cab fare is Linda Harris (Efrat Dor), the CIA operative sent to join forces with Moran to rescue Jack Suttelberg (Nitzan Zitzer), a kidnapped American tech-billionaire, responsible for the must-have phone used by millions. His captors, RBG (not the supreme court justice but Really Bad Guys) want to take over his phones and so the world. Will the agents overcome their rivalry to save the captive and the world? Will hunky Moran resist the attentions of Sharon (Adi Himelbloy), Suttelberg’s impossibly glam who-remembers-what-number wife? Will he land up in bed with Agent Harris? It really doesn’t matter. To misquote one movie cliché writer-director Alon Gur Aryeh doesn’t include, just go along for the breathlessly bumpy ride.

By Judi Herman

UK Jewish Film Festival streams Thursday 5 – Thursday 19 November. Times & prices vary. ONLINE. https://ukjewishfilm.org