Interview: Nadav Lapid
At sundown tonight, Jews around the world will begin their observance of Tisha b’Av. The holiday commemorates the two times (so far) when Jerusalem has been destroyed: by the Babylonians in 587 BCE and by the Romans in 70 CE. We are instructed to mourn these losses of sovereignty as though they had just occurred, by fasting and refraining from joyful activities. However, we do not rage against our foes on Tisha b’Av so much as we rage against ourselves. Our predecessors lost their way and, in doing so, lost the favor of God, who sent these enemies as punishment. We did wrong, and, for that, we lost our self-determination.
Today, a Jewish state stands again on the precipice, and no one understands that better than Nadav Lapid. One of the greatest filmmakers to ever emerge from Israel, Lapid has unflinchingly told of the rot at the heart of his country in stunning films like Shoter (Policeman), HaGanenet (The Kindergarten Teacher), and Synonymes (Synonyms). He has written and directed a new film (you can watch it here) called HaBerekh, which literally translates to “The Knee,” but which also connotes the Hebrew words for prayer and blessing.
The specific knee in question is that of Ahed Tamimi, a young Palestinian activist about whom a member of Israeli parliament once tweeted, “In my opinion, she should have gotten a bullet, at least in the kneecap.” The film was given the English name Ahed’s Knee, which is a step down from the poetry of the Hebrew title, but the film is still enormously powerful, even in translation. It follows an urbanite Israeli filmmaker, identified only as Yud (the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet), while he makes a visit to a remote desert town in the south of the country for a screening of his new movie. His conversations there shine a light on what is appealing about the Zionist dream and what is horrifying about the Zionist reality.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Lapid a few months ago, and have shamefully not gotten around to publishing the interview until now. But with Tisha b’Av just around the corner, I felt like it was time. I hope you find the conversation as interesting as I did.
Before you read, you may want to listen to the iconic 1990 Israeli rock hit “Nitzotzot” (“Sparks”), a cover of which plays at a crucial moment in the film, and which we discussed at some length.
How did you feel about the English title of the movie?
Actually, regarding the title, I preferred "The Knee," but the French and then the American partners found this title strange, or ridiculous. I mean, they started to tell jokes, like: "OK, I want to have two tickets for 'The Knee.'" They found it very funny. I didn’t find it funny.
Of course, the title of the film is a part of the film, but, in my head, there is a kind of distinction between what’s on the screen from the moment the movie begins. Regarding this part, I’m extremely stubborn and I don’t tend to make compromises. But questions like, for instance, posters: I’m supposed to care, but, truly, I don’t care so much. The title is somewhere in the middle, especially when you translate the title. What I didn’t like about it is that, maybe, to certain people, it gave the feeling as if, either we take out Ahed for the Israeli public because it’s sensitive, or we add it for the international public, because we think it will score some points. Which was totally not the case.
My work is getting translated to other languages right now, and I lose sleep sometimes over the fact that the puns are all going to get lost.
The real problem is not the title, it’s the subtitles. One of the hardest things is to make subtitles to an Israeli movie. In Hebrew, everything is very laconic. You can say everything in one word, two words, three words. In English, it’s twice that, and in French it’s three times longer, and then you find yourself giving up a lot of things, or simplifying things. And, mainly, this is true for Israeli movies, but in my movies, first of all, they’re all obsessed with language, so it’s really complicated. It’s not only people saying, one to the other: “Come here,” “bye-bye,” “are you cold,” “are you hungry.” And also, in each of my movies — and especially in this one — there’s a moment of a person who has a kind of verbal trance. And a part of his trance is the fact that he’s talking very very quickly. So this, of course, doubles the problem. It means major points of this movie are missing.
It still retains a tremendous amount of impact, especially the scene where Yud goes into that verbal trance.
No, I mean, of course they get it. And in cinema, of course, in this sense, it's different from literature, because the relationship with the image — it doesn’t make the text less important, but it puts it in a different position, because it has the visual context or counterweight. But, you know, this translation thing is something I've dealt with so much, and it always takes so much time to translate my movies.
And do you watch subtitles in English and French and approve them?
I always approve them, but only after making 30,000 notes. It’s always, with the poor subtitle creator, endless discussions and battles.
The big question that sticks out in my mind is, what was the origin of the cover of “Nitzotzot,” sung by Orit Shachaf — who’s very famous in her own right — that plays in the middle of the film? It’s fantastic; I’ve been listening to it nonstop. I made a little MP3 of the cover, just so I could listen to it over and over again.
Actually, it’s funny. My first student film — it wasn’t the first one, but in a way it was the real first one; before, it was short exercises — it was a film I wrote. It was in Berlinale in 2005, and there, I used this song already, for the first time, “Nitzozot.” It’s a song that is haunting me for years, or I feel connected to for years. It’s one of these rare songs that, on one hand, you find beautiful and moving and intelligent in a certain way, and, on another hand, it gains a kind of public mythological dimension. It’s this rare point of meetings between your own private collection or musical treasures and the national library. It’s touching. It’s emotional without being sentimental.
What begins as the song, in his mind, becomes kind of a concrete scene, as if he’s walking after the melody or walking after the song, is, it’s like hearing something as a part of this unconscious search and quest that he has during the whole movie. We looked for someone who will not only be able to make a beautiful or surprising cover, but also have the right physicality. When people ask me about sources of inspiration, usually I don’t like this question, but I must say that, preparing for this shoot, I often watched the last season of Twin Peaks. I’m saying it because I think the singer resembled, in a way, Laura Dern. It’s strange to suddenly find these people sitting inside this room, that you don’t totally understand what it is. And she has a kind of charismatic and powerful presence. And voice, of course, but also presence — without being totally understood. You feel all the time that there is something behind it, or there’s still a secret, or there’s a story that maybe is not totally told, but the story exists. So that’s how we got to this version of “Nitzozot.”
I’ll confess to being an ignorant American: I wasn’t aware of the song beforehand, but it stirred me very deeply, even before I looked up the lyrics. And it prompted me to go down a rabbit hole in asking my Israeli contacts: “Tell me about this song.” And everybody had a strong association with it. Everyone was like, “Of course I know this song.”
Yeah. It’s a little like a hymn. Maybe you should compare it to a kind of Bob Dylan hymn or something like this in the U.S. Like Janis Joplin; I don’t know. Strangely, the fact that they are shared by many doesn’t make them feel less personal.
What are some of the big differences you see in responses to your films from Jewish audiences in different countries?
In Israel, the basic assumption is that, apart from those who are not Jews, everybody is a Jew. The majority is. In the U.S. and France, I don’t know exactly who is Jewish and who is not. When there is a screening at film festivals, or sociologically, when it takes place at Lincoln Center, a certain part of New York is a kind of Jewish bourgeois, but I have no idea. Of course there is a difference. First of all, what’s nice is that, to an extent, essentially, it’s kind of the same. I include Israel, where you could imagine that my films would be observed differently, but all over, it evokes a polemic. All over, it divides the audience. All over, there are people who are furious, and those who really feel like the movie talked from their own throat.
I think the reason for this is that, at the very end, this movie, as with most of the art pieces, the real issue is the formal one. When I say formal, I don’t mean only how the camera is moving, or the rhythm of editing, but how the movie treats its audience. I think there’s something in the movie that is kind of contesting its audience, calling them to a kind of frontal shock, to a kind of boxing fight. In a way, I think that the attitude of the movie is, in order for the audience to become intimate with the movie, it must pass first through a clash, then a conflict. In a way, the widest window to our soul is the one achieved through a certain sense of provocation. Today, it’s a challenge to provoke. But already, of course, there are people who feel lost or attacked, and who respond or repost with rage and fury, and I can totally understand it, while others suddenly feel thankful for the fact that the movie is challenging them in such a way, or that the movie in a way tries to get really really close to them. In life, or in love, in order to get really intimate, a relationship must be deep. You cannot stay in shallow kindness and politeness. This is the basic thing, and in this sense, I don’t see a distinction between American, French, Chinese, or Israelis.
Afterwards, I would say that the main thing, the main difference, is about to what extent the movie is funny. There are huge differences between audiences in different countries, in the level of laughter that you hear during the screening. For instance, I think that in New York, I felt that people are very attached to a certain humor. Let’s say that until the 60-minute mark, or something like this, they were laughing as if it was a wild dark comedy, and then less. In Switzerland, where I went not long ago, maybe they laughed discreetly. Reactions were good, and I’m not saying I’m examining, like, those who passed and those who failed. Another thing is, how do you relate to a very frontal piece of art? Because there’s a kind of frontality and brutality about this movie. I think, in order to enjoy the movie, you must enjoy this frontality, you must enjoy this brutality. In the U.S., for instance, I felt that people really appreciated it…they saw it as part of the fun, part of the game that the movie is playing with them.
The great challenge of being an artist who sees through the veil is dealing with hopelessness. What’s something right now in your life that gives you cause to get up in the morning and feel excited about life?
The fact that I’m in an advanced stage of my new script, and that I have two or three new ideas. To nourish new movies, making movies, for me, is the only thing I know and the only thing I really enjoy.