“Israelis cannot live in peace as individuals and as a society as long as the country remains an oppressor,” says writer/director Udi Aloni. After watching Mechilot (Forgiveness), many delegates at the International Film Festival of India said this was the Israeli film for which they were waiting. Udi Aloni’s is a voice most Middle East observers do not often hear: talking about the terrible burden of guilt carried by the Israeli people. His film laments what the state has made of its younger generation. Mechilot presents a gloomy picture of war and oppression, reflecting the director’s own frustration at being isolated in a society that is aggressive and uncompromising. David, a young Israeli-American, is struggling with an identity crisis. He tattoos the Star of David on his chest, picks a fight with a group of demonstrating Palestinians, and eventually joins the Israeli Armed Force. Aloni does not present any niceties in his portrayal of the IAF’s conduct. Whether it is the day-to-day tormenting of the Palestinians at checkpoints or the supposed counter-terror operations in West Bank that turn young Jewish soldiers into murderers, Aloni is unequivocal in his criticism. But David’s journey is more philosophical and mystical. After losing his memory in one such violent operation, David lands in an asylum that was originally built for Holocaust survivors on the ruins of a Palestinian village destroyed by Israeli forces in 1948. While his doctor faces the dilemma of keeping David from the memory of his crime, the inmates of the asylum, who are rumored to be in touch with ghosts of the villagers killed in 1948, have different plans. Aloni does not choose one of these paths for his protagonist. He toils with all the three prospects and lets the audience judge the conclusions. The film gives the viewers considerable food for thought with an unsettling background score and by dividing the screen space to show parallel endings.
Through David, the director says that the nation may try to forget the injustices they perpetrated, but their guilt finds a way to chase and haunt them for ever. He also pointed out after the screening that if people have once been in the position of power they will continue to remain oppressors for the rest of their lives.
Mechilot uses Greek mythology, Sufism, and Freudian examples to establish the third setting, an abstract and lyrical journey inwards. To recognize their crimes and accept responsibility for them is essential, according to Aloni, for his country to make a new beginning. He said that the only way to be Jewish is to love your neighbor but agrees that there can be no ‘forgiveness’ as along as Israel continues to occupy Palestinian territory. He also pointed out that this is not a challenge Israel alone faces, as the United States and India would also have answer these questions with regard to Iraq and Kashmir, respectively. But is asking for ‘forgiveness’ by itself sufficient to erase the worst memories of Israel’s neighbors, as well as its own people? The answer to this hypothetic question ironically lies in the film itself. When a place to treat Holocaust survivors is built after ruining a Palestinian village, the ghosts of the past would continue to haunt the inmates (who never seem to be cured), erasing hope of a brighter future. Justice has to come at a much higher price.
Mechilot undoubtedly comes as a stupendous effort on part of the director, whose colleagues have made only oblique references to the conflict. Still, Hadvarim Shemeahorei Hashemesh (Things Behind the Sun) written and directed by Yuval Shafferman and Shalosh Imahot (Three Mothers) written and directed by Dina Zvi-Riklis also come with strong messages showcasing the fragility of Israeli families. Through their commentaries on these families, the films show how a peaceful life in Israel is still very much a myth. The story in Hadvarim Shemeahorei Hashemesh runs parallel to a reality television show, a story about a well-to-do Tel Aviv family whose lives are falling apart. Shalosh Imahot, is exactly the opposite, the invincibility of the spirit of sisterhood, which keeps the protagonists together in the face of personal tragedies and animosities. Shalosh Imahot is a story of triplets born in Egypt and the life they shared together, narrated individually. They locate the events in their life in relation to the political developments of the time, whether it is the 1967 war or the visit of the first Arab leader to Israel.
In direct contrast, the only reference in Hadvarim Shemeahorei Hashemesh to the political situation is the news of Israeli air strikes on Gaza on television, which is seemingly obsessed with the reality show. In one scene of Hadvarim Shemeahorei Hashemesh, a nurse, whose child is suffering from cancer, says that chemotherapy has made him more of an Israeli. The director shows the consequences of the pressure of this forced macho-ism on the people individually and as a family very well. Itzhak’s eldest son insists on continuing his pizza delivery job though he is closing in on 30. He knows his parents are embarrassed of him and pretends he doesn’t care. The second lives in the northern city of Haifa to escape her family. Her sexual orientation can be seen as part of her effort to escape all identities. Her rebellion struggles with her reluctance to ‘come out of the closet’. Didush, who is just 10, is too young to know what the family has been through. Unlike the rest, she is still honest about her love for her family, for showing one’s feelings is a sign of weakness as articulated by the nurse. Unwittingly, the mother, an artist who hasn’t had the opportunity to explore her talent until recently, lays bare the reality of this fragmented family through a series of nude paintings. It is through her eyes that the children see what they really are. On the other hand, the sisters in Shalosh Imahot stick together when nothing else in their lives survives. Under the reality of their unbreakable spirit, several disturbing secrets lie buried. They take collective responsibility for a personal wrong that one sister has done to another. They don’t ignore the truth, but they don’t even have to mention it. Not until one sister’s urge to speak up triggers a string of confessions and three different narrations of the same story. Ironically, while a trip to Egypt by a Palestinian, even with all the requisite permits, can be fatal, the sisters travel to Egypt quite easily but have to hide their real identity once they are in Cairo.
Finally, in the film Petit Jerusalem (Little Jerusalem) directed by Karin Albou, Laura’s family, unaware of the reality of life in Israel, decides to move there in the hope of escaping discrimination,. But Laura wants to stay in France to explore the freedom she never had while living in a conservative community that is trying to survive in a hostile country. Laura’s story connects directly with that of David’s in Mechilot. The challenge the Jewish community faces goes beyond the choices David and Laura have before them. The oppression of Jews did not end with the rest of the world recognizing the crimes perpetuated against them and establishing a new country for their people; nor will the Middle East conflict be resolved with ‘forgiveness’ as espoused Aloni.
