The marvelously claustrophobic and deeply damning Israeli courtroom drama “Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem” actually consists of three trials.
Seeking a divorce after some 30 years, Viviane aims to cast her husband Elisha as the defendant. However, the government-funded religious court vested with authority over Jewish divorces won’t grant a get, or Jewish writ of divorce, without the husband’s consent, and the triumvirate of Orthodox rabbis insists it has limited power to pressure him.
As a result, it often feels as if Viviane (rivetingly played by Ronit Elkabetz) is on trial. And because the process seems arbitrary and unfairly skewed in favor of the husband (the taciturn, unwavering Simon Abkarian), the film explicitly puts the system itself on trial.
“Our work is very political,” declares Shlomi Elkabetz, who co-wrote and co-directed the film with his sister Ronit. “ ‘Gett’ is a protest film.”
“Gett” opens Feb. 27 in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose and San Rafael.
The Elkabetzes, whose family background is Moroccan Sephardic, were born in Beersheva and raised in the Haifa region.
“We did not have any connection whatsoever to the [main]cultural centers in Israel [growing up],” Elkabetz said during a visit to San Francisco last fall, when “Gett” received its U.S. premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival. “We did not have any access, not by our family members and not by the surroundings of the places we grew up in.”
Outsiders who had to push and elbow their way into Israel’s Ashkenazi-dominated cultural hierarchy, the Elkabetz siblings take great satisfaction in the film’s Ophir (Israel’s Oscar) for best picture and its selection as Israel’s official submission to the Oscars in the best foreign language film category. (It is not one of the final contenders.)
The film’s structure and setup is simple and powerful: Viviane wants a divorce, and her husband says no.
“Just like that, there is huge suspense, because we identify with the wish of Viviane to be free,” Elkabetz says. “The dream of the modern world is freedom. She wants something that all of us want.”
The corollary to rooting for Viviane is that the other characters take on the cloak of villains. But the filmmakers made a concerted effort to imbue the story with nuance and ambiguity, which makes for a more interesting, provocative and richer work.
“[Ronit and I] don’t judge Viviane, we do not judge Elisha, not the judges, we do not judge [Ronit’s] advocate,” Elkabetz says. “Everybody has his place for performing their interior life and making it exterior in that little theater of the court. Everybody is respected by us, the storytellers.”
“Gett” marks the third and final chapter of an exceptional trilogy that began in the very first scene of “To Take a Wife” (2004), with Viviane’s seven brothers discouraging her from rocking the boat and seeking a divorce. “Shiva” (“Seven Days”), released in 2008 and set a few years after Viviane has left Elisha, reunites the extended family for a funeral.
“Shiva” also won the Ophir for best picture, so the attention and respect of their peers is not a brand-new experience for the Elkabetzes.
For his part, Shlomi wants to make accessible films that provoke audience reactions and, ideally, promote societal change. Intense and often intensely absurd, the beautifully crafted and acted “Gett” hits every mark.
“If I go to all this trouble, I want people to be aware of the film,” Elkabetz says. “Part of my attraction in cinema is to try to make cinema that does not give up filmmaking. I’m not trying to flatter anyone but to be strict and radical and at the same time to be popular. Is it possible? I don’t know.”
Elkabetz laughs, at himself and the test he has set for himself. Consider it the fourth trial of “Gett.”
“Gett” opens Friday, Feb. 27 at the Clay in S.F., the Shattuck in Berkeley, Camera 3 in San Jose and the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. In Hebrew, French and Arabic with English subtitles (Unrated, 115 minutes)