Rape, domestic violence, prostitution: an Israeli trilogy shakes up the country
CINEMA
Forming a striking triptych about emotional dependence, separation, rape and prostitution, Israeli Yaron Shani’s three feature films “Chained”, “Beloved” and “Stripped” also offer a sharp look at Israeli society. First released in theatres a week apart at the beginning of July, the first two films are followed by a third, “Stripped”, selected at the Venice Film Festival in 2018 and to be seen in cinemas from 23 September.
Looking at Israeli filmmaker Yaron Shani’s trilogy on male/female relationships in his country – consisting of Chained, Beloved and Stripped – is an attempt to put together a puzzle made up of fragments of broken lives. Or rather, trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube with three sides, each of which is independent, tells different stories, but is nevertheless essential to the outcome of the other two.
Two first films on the rupture
Reconstructing side A is to discover Chained, a feature film released in theatres on July 8 which follows the journey of Rashi (Eran Naim) and Avigail (Stav Almagor), a couple who tries (in vain) to have a child.
The man is a policeman in Tel Aviv, madly in love with his wife but in the grip of tantrums, especially with Avigail’s daughter, a 13-year-old girl born of a first union. Without pathos, Chained then stages the journey of a deeply loving man, but caught up by unbearable pressures. First of all, that of his work, since he is accused of sexual assault on a minor after having carried out a body search. Then, that of the family unit, since his wife is gradually becoming detached from him and, unfortunately, this is irrevocable.
The B side of this trilogy, Beloved – released in theatres on 15 July – opens on the same scene as the previous film but from the woman’s point of view: Avigail is in consultation with her gynaecologist alongside her husband Rashi. The doctor’s verdict is indisputable: the foetus’ heart has stopped beating. Then follows the crying, then the return to the EHPAD – where she is a nurse – and the meeting with a woman, Yael, who comes to visit her dying father with her unbalanced and prostituted sister. Unlike Chained, which focuses on the couple, this second feature-length film revolves around another duo, that formed by Avigail and Yael. Thus, it gives us the keys to understanding the first part of the triptych: discovering friendship, being surrounded by a loving woman and, above all, being listened to has opened the eyes of the mother of the family. She is not happy with her husband.
An almost documentary trilogy
Like Yolande Zauberman’s excellent M – released in 2018 and awarded this year’s César for best documentary – which denounced with the necessary brutality the rapes committed in the ultra-Orthodox communities on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, the trilogy of the 47-year-old Israeli Yaron Shani is shaking up the country. In a quasi-documentary approach – some of the actors are non-professional, some scenes have been written because the actors have actually experienced them, faces are blurred and we even witness a real birth – the filmmaker gives the viewer a sharp vision of the society in which he evolves: it is patriarchal, gangrenous with sexual assaults but nevertheless allows for female emancipation (even if the escape sometimes lies in prostitution).
A denunciation of rape
With Stripped, C-side and final chapter of this trilogy of intimacy, Yaron Shani pushes the drama to its climax. After staging a toxic relationship of emotional dependency in Chained, painting a beautiful picture of sisterhood and the quest for female – albeit complex – independence in Beloved, he tackles rape and compulsory military service in Stripped.
Although no character links him to the first part of the trilogy, he is connected to Beloved via Alice, now the main character and who appeared in the previous film by coming to the aid of Yael’s sister, a sex worker in a Telavivian brothel. In this feature-length film, we discover the writer Alice gnawed by an initially unidentified ailment. Very quickly, we understand the cause: she was drugged and then raped in her home.
In his production, Yaron Shani looks back at the last moments before the attack: a few weeks ago, the young woman met Ziv, a high school student who lives across the street. A gifted musician, he plans to make a career out of it, but is violently turned away during an audition. Alice then decides to make a documentary project out of his story, but the young man is soon called up for military service… Here, in addition to denouncing the rape and the self-censorship it causes (the novelist stays at home for days with the shutters closed, refuses to talk to her family and friends and tries in vain to contact victim support centres by phone), the director nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film for his thriller Ajami (2009) points the finger at a militaristic state. As soon as he becomes a soldier, Ziv is constantly flanked by a machine gun and changes his behaviour. Finally, Yaron Shani describes an alienating modern society – all countries combined – and, above all, male-female relationships of domination and perpetual violence.
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