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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Saturday 28 OctOber 2017

Oscar hopeful ‘Foxtrot’

locked in Israel’s culture war

By ILAN BEN ZION phor for the country as a secular Israelis.
Associated Press whole. But the scene that appar-
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s “We’re tilting,” one soldier ently raised Regev’s hack-
contender for this year’s says after rolling a can of les shows Israeli soldiers at
foreign-language Oscar processed meat to gauge a checkpoint accidentally
has swept local film awards the barracks’ angle. “If killing a carful of innocent
and scored high honors at we’re tilting then eventu- civilians, and the army’s
the Venice Film Festival. ally we’ll turn over and sink. subsequent cover-up of
In this Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017 file photo, director Samuel Maoz But before it even hit the When it happens it’ll hap- the incident in the most lit-
poses for portraits for the film “Foxtrot” at the 74th Venice Film silver screen at home, Sam- pen suddenly. I don’t know eral fashion — with a bull-
Festival in Venice, Italy. uel Maoz’s “Foxtrot,” a dra- if I’ll have enough time to dozer.
Associated Press ma exploring Israel’s West say ‘I told you so,’ so I’m Maoz dismissed Regev’s
Bank occupation and the telling you now.” criticism in an interview with
modern Israeli psyche, has Act three revisits the par- the Hebrew daily Haaretz,
found itself caught in the ents a year after their son’s saying the scene was alle-
crossfire of a raging culture death and explores the gorical and meant to show
war. way they relate to grief how Israeli society “pre-
Culture Minister Miri Re- and loss. fers to bury the truth in the
gev’s beef with Foxtrot is Foxtrot was nominated for mud we created, instead
part of her ongoing battle Best Film in Venice, where of dealing with it and ask-
with artists perceived as it won the runner-up Grand ing ourselves piercing ques-
being critical of the Israeli Jury Prize in September. tions.”
government. Since taking It then swept the Ophir “It may be that the IDF is
office in 2015, Regev has Awards, Israel’s most pres- a moral army,” he said,
moved to cut government tigious film honors, taking echoing a common refrain
funding to theaters and eight categories, including voiced by military com-
artists deemed disloyal to best film. The winner of the manders. “But the experi-
the state and troupes that Ophir Best Film is submitted ence of war doesn’t truly
refuse to perform in West as the country’s Oscar sub- allow you to be moral.”
Bank settlements. mission. Maoz himself served in the
Foxtrot plays out in three Since 1964, 10 Israeli films Israeli tank corps in Leba-
acts. Its title refers both have been nominated for non in the 1980s. His 2009
to the name of an army the Academy Award’s best film “Lebanon,” which also
checkpoint depicted in foreign film but none won. scooped up awards in Ven-
the movie and the dance, Shortly after its Venice ice that year, was a largely
whose circular movement award, Regev — a for- autobiographical account
alludes to the cycles of mer army spokeswoman based on Maoz’s wartime
generational trauma. and military censor — ap- experience.
Act one follows the lives peared in television inter- Celebrated Israeli actor Lior
of an Israeli family after views railing against Foxtrot, Ashkenazi, who starred in
the parents learn that their while admitting she hadn’t the 2011 Oscar-nominated
son, a soldier, was killed in actually seen it. She wrote film “Footnote” and plays
action. In a country where on Facebook that she was Foxtrot’s troubled protago-
military service is mandato- “ashamed” that the Israeli nist, swatted back at Re-
ry for most Jews when they film academy celebrated gev. “If the minister had
turn 18, the opening scene Foxtrot, “a film that chose read Chekhov, she would
with the announcement of to slander the Israel De- understand what meta-
the young man’s death is fense Forces.” She later phor is,” Ashkenazi said,
the epitome of many Israeli broadcast a speech on referring to Regev’s proud
parents’ worst fears. her Facebook page saying declaration in 2015 that
Act two jumps back in time, Foxtrot aimed to “destroy she never read the Russian
to the young man’s military the biggest celebration in author, seen as a symbol of
service and an unglorified the 20th century, the state the country’s European-ed-
depiction of Israeli army life of Israel,” and vowed to ucated elites. “If the minis-
at a remote checkpoint — cut government funding of ter had read Chekhov, per-
the tedium, the muck, the films. haps she would know what
misery. Foxtrot received 14 per- allegory is.”
Though Foxtrot never men- cent of its funding from the She has attempted to cut
tions Palestinians by name, government sponsored funding to theaters that
and the people stopped by Israeli Film Fund, with the perform works sympathet-
the soldiers at the check- remainder coming from as- ic to the Palestinians, and
point never utter a word, sistance from France and even tried to meddle in the
the film obliquely criticizes Germany. playlist of Israel’s most pop-
Israel’s occupation of the The film explores a number ular radio station, saying it
West Bank as unjust, futile of issues in Israeli society, was snubbing Middle East-
and morally corrupting. from the lingering effects ern-influenced music pop-
The soldiers’ shipping con- of the Holocaust, to Israeli ular with her political base
tainer barracks is gradually machismo and the role of in favor of mainstream
sinking in the mud, a meta- Jewish tradition among Western-style pop.q