Yom Yom

In Yom Yom, the second film in Amos Gitai´s (Devarim, Kadosh) celebrated "City Trilogy," Israel´s preeminent writer-director weaves, "a darkly comic tale of characters driven by divided loyalties and neurotic inhibitions" (The Village Voice) in the mixed nationality Mediterranean port city of Haifa. Featuring a top-flight ensemble cast, including multiple Israeli Academy Award winner Moshe Ivgy (Munich) and stage legend (and 20s UFA child star) Hanna Meron (M), Yom Yom is a film of unusual wit, grace and insight.

In spite of blood ties to both Haifa´s Jewish and Arab populations, Moshe (Ivgy) leads a rootless existence. Grown weary of his impatient wife Didi (Keren Mor) and ambivalent about his needy young mistress Grisha (Natali Atiya), the only relationships Moshe doesn´t complicate are with his devoted parents, Jewish Hanna (Meron) and Arab Yussuf, and with Jules (Juliano Mer), Moshe´s ne´r-do-well childhood friend. But when Jules´ real estate developer brother moves to buy a prized piece of property from the Arab side of the family, Moshe´s divided ancestry is put to the test. As Moshe becomes entangled in the hidden connections between friend, wife, lover, parent, Arab and Jew, Yom Yom, "exploits the comedy of Moshe´s predicament without robbing the character of his dignity" (The New York Times).

From boudoir to bakery to army barracks, "Gitai´s genius," wrote The Village Voice "is to show the conflict infiltrating every encounter." Underneath its deadpan surface, Yom Yom is a film of incisiveness and energy that places an individual face on a city´s divided identity, and reveals the heart beneath anonymous modern ennui.

Upplagd i sortimentet: 3 April, 2007