i used to say that any movie that makes you think a lot after you leave is a good film. so this morning i had to drive to another city for work, and spent most of the time going over karov la bayit ("close to home") in my head. i liked the movie, i'm just still not sure what it was trying to say.
"karov" is an israeli film about a pair of female soldiers in the IDF. it was interesting for a number of reasons. first, although israel has drafted women since the inception of the state and there have been many many films about male draftees, "karov la bayit" seems to be the only film about female draftees.
second, the film was produced by the israeli film fund. that organization recently produced films like chronicle of a disappearance, paradise now, and the syrian bride, films that show a very different side of israel than the viewpoint from within the IDF.
and finally, despite its subject matter, the film did not directly deal with the israeli-palestinian issue. that's not to say that the issue wasn't there. it was hanging in the background the whole way through. it just declined to take any sort of expressly political tone. on top of that, the film initially misleads you into thinking it will be quite different. in the very first scene, the female characters are working at a border crossing strip-searching arab women as they enter jerusalem. one of the IDF soldiers tells her commanding officer that she can't do it anymore. her officer orders her to continue searching, so she disobeys orders and tells all of the arab women to pass through without being searched. the rebellious soldier is arrested and charged, and only appears again briefly much later in the film. after that initial scene, no one expresses any problem with what they are doing, or expresses much political rebellion at all. usually the first scene of a film sets the tone for the rest of what you see. but in this case, it raises the issue, then drops it. but by raising it, did the filmmakers purposely plant the issue to hover unmentioned in the background of the rest of the film?
it's really not clear at all. the remaining 95% of the film follows two IDF soldiers who are charged with wandering around jerusalem, stopping men who look arab and asking them for their IDs. they don't do their job very well, but not because of politics. but rather because they're fairly typical 18 year olds. they sneak off to smoke and buy stuff. they follow a guy who they are attracted to, and sometimes they goof off on the job just to rebel.
the movie is really about the relationship between these two partnered soldiers. and it was that relationship that kept up my interest in the theater. but afterwards, when i step back from the film, i have to wonder what exactly it was trying to say. was it saying that 18 year olds draftees aren't up to the job of being soldiers? is it saying that women aren't? is it saying that discipline inevitably breaks down when you put people in morally impossible positions? or was it, as one person suggested in the post-film discussion, just a reflection of what the pair that wrote and directed the film themselves experienced when they performed their own service in the israeli military?
