Review for

Out for Love, Be Right Back (Yetzika L'hapes Ahavah, Techef Ashuv) - Israel, 1997

Israeli drama/documentary by Dan Katzir, a young filmmaker from a prominent Tel Aviv family. Katzir arrives in film school in Tel Aviv, newly out of the army, and starts filming his own life and his search for a girlfriend. This is an admittedly loathesome start for any film, and it's been done dozens of times (20 Dates, last year), but it becomes extremely compelling once we get to know him, his family, and the eventual girl, a lovely brunette named Iris. As Katzir gets to know her, he also confronts his own family history, ranging from an great-uncle who was president to his grandfather, slaughtered in the Tel Aviv airport by Japanese terrorists in the 1970s.

Katzir is extremely young (21 when starting the film, newly out of the army) and his politics and sensibilities are informed by the contemporary youthful post-Zionism and skepticism of the army. As he says, he'd rather be on the streets of Tel Aviv, sitting in cafeŽs and looking for a girlfriend. But politics inevitably intrude on his artistic dreams: his romance with Iris coincides with the traumatic period of Israeli politics during the middle-1990s, from the peace with Jordan to the assassination of Rabin to the mass terrorism in the heart of his beloved Dizengoff Square. As Iris enlists in the army, eventually joining the officer's training program, he has to reconcile his own disillusionment with the army with her dreams and his own family history.

After a bit of a slow start, this becomes a very moving and fast-paced story, especially as Katzir realizes how much his own life and ambitions are entangled with Israel's as a nation. At 55 minutes, it's brief and tightly edited. The music selection illustrates an odd sense of humor, ranging from sentimental Israeli army ballads to mid-century French cafe chansons by Edith Piaf. Well recommended. Katzir's website at http://www.katzirdan.com has info on this film and other projects.


 Michael Zwirn                mzwirn01@tufts.edu        ICQ #12755821
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