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In “My Daughter, My Love,” fathers spy on children, wives cheat, husbands cry and babies … babies are simply adorable.
In this quiet, tender film filled with long silences and even longer walks through Paris, legendary Israeli actor Sasson Gabay (“The Band’s Visit,” “Shtisel,” “Karaoke”) plays Shimon, a widower who visits the French capital to see Nissim, his childhood friend from Morocco, who is in the hospital with a heart condition. While there, Shimon stays with his only daughter, Alma (Sivan Levy), her husband, Dori (Ido Bartal), and their infant son.
During his visit, Shimon quickly realizes that his daughter’s marriage is in trouble and that she is suffering some kind of breakdown. Always the loving father, he steps into the fray, trying to mediate between Alma and Dori. He begins following Dori around the city, sure he is cheating on Alma, then switches gears and, egged on by Dori, begins spying on Alma.
Even as Nissim (Albert Iluz) and his wife counsel Shimon to back off and leave the young couple to figure out their own marriage, Shimon becomes more and more deeply entwined in the ever-worsening situation, trying desperately to understand what is wrong and how he can fix it. Shimon knows that Alma is self-destructing but cannot stop her. The film lurches toward its denouement.
This convoluted plot might suggest a frenetic, energetic movie, but quite the opposite is true. All the action takes place during a few days, and director Eitan Green takes time with his characters, lingering on their faces in exquisite closeups. Gabay and Levy in particular rise to the challenge of close visual inspection, their facial expressions conveying love, anger, confusion, despair and joy, without need for words.
Indeed, long shots and long periods of silence create a mood of soft mystery, as do careful lighting choices and the lack of a soundtrack. And although the plot is ostensibly about Alma and Dori’s marriage, it’s really about the deep love between Shimon and his daughter, a love that sometimes leads to pain, sometimes to shouting, but one that abides.
“Was I a good dad?” he asks Alma at one point, to which she answers, “Yes, you were very gentle. You were hiding in your gentleness.”
The two take care of each other, even amid berating the other for behavior they find untenable. They share secrets and get to know each other better than when they both lived in Israel.
In one lovely, pivotal scene, Alma and Shimon go to dinner at a fancy restaurant. As they walk home along a softly lit cobblestone alley, Alma says, “This is nice.” Shimon says, “What?” and she responds, “Strolling along quietly.” After a short pause, Shimon says, “Without talking?” to which Alma replies, “Yes.”
That can be said of the entire film. It’s nice sometimes to stroll along quietly, without talking.