“Nina’s Tragedies,” the latest in the current parade of Israeli films receiving U.S. distribution, arrives with the glossiest credentials.
Savi Gabizon’s absurdist drama nabbed 11 Israeli Academy Awards, including best picture, director and actress, and was the country’s official submission for the 2004 Oscar for best foreign-language film.
A saga of grief shot with droll flashes of black humor, “Nina’s Tragedies” evokes the fragmentation and neurosis of Israeli urban life. But while the movie resonated with audiences at home, Americans are apt to feel that something has been lost in translation.
As in his previous films, the deadpan satires “Shuroo” and “Lovesick on Nana Street,” Gabizon stretches to mix laughter and despair and strains to avoid cliché. Determined to keep viewers off-balance, he offers characters that aren’t identifiably comic or tragic but a blend of both.
As a result, Gabizon sacrifices belly laughs for chuckles and full-on empathy for a more distanced reaction. “Nina’s Tragedies,” which closed last year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, will either charm and captivate you or leave you cold; there is no middle ground.
“Nina’s Tragedies” opens Friday, July 29 at the Opera Plaza Cinema.
The film is narrated by 14-year-old Nadav (Aviv Elkabets, making his movie debut), whose defining characteristic is his pubescent crush on his beautiful Aunt Nina (Ayelet July Zurer).
Nadav is an ordinary boy, although his parents have split up and he has no friends. He lives with his mom, an excitable fashion designer with an active love life. His soft-spoken father, Amnon, became religious after the divorce and, inexplicably, ceased contact with the boy.
The film could have been called “Nadav’s Tragedies,” for the lad is continually stung by the failure of every adult to live up to his expectations.
The movie begins with Amnon’s funeral, following his premature death from cancer. Rather, it begins with a vaguely amusing argument between the rabbi and a fellow tightening a loose wheel on the stretcher upon which Amnon lies, and which will carry him to his grave.
Both the manner in which Nadav witnesses this exchange — peeking and eavesdropping through a window — and the juxtaposition of profound tragedy with banal chitchat will be repeated. The former becomes tiresome while the latter, even if it reflects everyday life, reeks of screenwriter’s calculation.
The film proceeds as one long flashback, with Nadav filling us in via entries in his diary. He is both precocious, in the tradition of adolescent movie narrators, and naïve: Every event is serious business whose significance is inflated.
But some developments are a big deal. Nina’s husband Haimon (Yoram Hatav) is killed on reserve duty, and Nadav temporarily moves in with her. The idea is she won’t have to go through her grieving process alone, but its real purpose is to allow the filmmaker to provide a more intimate picture of her.
“Nina’s Tragedies” is an odd amalgam of two points of view, Nadav and Nina’s, that never confuses us but conspires to leave us outside of both characters.
When it shifts to Nina’s perspective, the film provides a surprisingly tough-minded portrait of grief. But Gabizon gradually introduces touches of absurdity: a nudist struts down the street, a school counselor’s face breaks out from a mosquito bite, Chassidim pile out of Amnon’s van to dance in front of a busy café.
The filmmaker’s obsession with originality is admirable, but too many moments have an air of contrivance. “Nina’s Tragedies” is gracefully structured and will touch many viewers, but others will find it coy and pat.
“Nina’s Tragedies” opens Friday, July 29 at the Opera Plaza Cinema, 601 Van Ness Ave., S.F.