Foreign Sister is my first experience with pure Israeli cinema. It is not a movie merely about Israel but shot in, say, Toronto, or an American studio’s product with an Israeli story-line like Exodus or Operation Thunderbolt as we are somewhat accustomed to; rather the film is released by an Israeli movie studio, directed by a celebrated Israeli filmmaker and features a geographically correct cast (Paul Newman just wouldn’t feel authentic the second time around). It was also the winner of the Best Film of the Year honors at the Jerusalem Film Festival in the year 2000. Foreign Sister makes its way to America this week and is playing in selected theatres in Manhattan.

If you feel like getting a dose of, just, genuine Israeli ruach (the kind where you can smell the shwarma and taste the Goldstar), I recommend checking out this surprisingly gripping and serious-minded movie. See it if for no other reason than to experience the peculiar sensation of understanding a subtitled movie (to some degree) without the subtitles. You should also feel pleasantly nostalgic for the underrated city of Tel-Aviv’s scenery – reminiscent of all the wild weekends spent before you “got religious” (and ran out of drug money).

My original thoughts after seeing Foreign Sister was that the film was not reflective of Israel as a country or it’s culture in any significant way – it simply was a fine Israeli film, like Minority Report is an American film, not about America per se. The story could have been told anywhere and been just as powerful. I felt that the film concerned itself essentially with two separate universalistic themes (the class system and unfulfilled housewives) and welded them together in one (here’s an oxymoron for you) minimalist odyssey, however within an Israeli context. I say minimalist only because – for better or worse – it is a film evidently with a modest budget and a limited talent pool as far as available trained actors. Some of the acting is so strikingly unnatural that it appears the actors are sounding out their lines phonetically without knowing the meaning of the words.

Regardless, the film presents an authoritative and insightful look at two persistently relevant themes mentioned above, and the credit for this falls upon the Writer/Director Dan Wolman, who received a Lifetime Achievement award at Jerusalem’s International Film Festival in 1999.

Mr. Wolman was kind enough to speak to me about the film over the weekend.

“You can imagine how frustrating it can get when you read a review of a film you worked so hard on and you feel that the viewer missed so many points that you, the filmmaker, were trying to get across”, he said. He would have been quite frustrated by myself had I not taken a chance and contacted him, because, as he subsequently pointed out, I missed a few key elements – but not all were entirely my fault. Some subtleties are so nuanced that only an Israeli audience would pick up on them. He told me that, “the film is full of little details which make it more than just a film that could have happened anywhere.”

Foreign Sister presents to us a family dynamic quite familiar (written and performed with effortless realism – the kind that you would never see coming out of Hollywood). A mother (Nomi, played naturally by Tamar Yerushalmi with a flare for using silence to express deep emotion) gets up before the sun and does bleary eyed housework, struggles to wake up the teenage kids, prepares breakfast for everyone, then goes to work. She can’t find a moment’s peace – and where is the appreciation? Of course it is there on some level – her family is portrayed as loving and respectful – but she is on auto-pilot. Her life, while full in all conventional categories, is without passion.

We are to believe she finds her missing heart by assisting and befriending the young Christian Ethiopian woman Negist (Askala Markos) who has been hired to clean her mother in law’s home.

Negist, a quiet, introspective African woman living temporarily in Israel to support a family in Ethiopia is a member of a group of several thousand similarly situated Africans dealing with racial and economic hardships in Israel.

The film intends primarily to open our eyes to the plight of these immigrant workers who illegally inhabit the land and are treated as third class citizens by proper Israelis. The film opens by staging an arrest of one worker by Israeli police, who appear to track down these paperless workers with Gestapolike fury. At one point, an Israeli on screen comments that “peace with Palestinians is better than the immigrant problem”.

Nomi begins “neglecting” her family to help Negist get a lawyer for her jailed friend. The film climaxes with Nomi witnessing one of the Ethiopians being beaten and finally bleeding to death in a sub-par Arab hospital in East Jerusalem. A Tel-Aviv or Jewish hospital would have been too dangerous being that Ethiopian Christians are undesirables in Israel.

“The episode in the film when they go to the Arab hospital is based on fact”, said Mr. Wolman. “A few years ago illegal workers went for treatment to Arab hospitals - because of fear that they'll be reported on to the police and also because they felt more comfortable in Christian Hospitals. This, by the way, has changed somewhat as hospitals in Israel have changed their policy and in most cases treat patients - even if they don't have "papers".”

The development of a “relationship” between Nomi and Negist is the soul of the movie and in some ways it is its greatest drawback. Negist is just not a charismatic or compelling enough character to have the audience understand why Nomi is so enthralled by her. She is standoffish and disinterested and so this supposed bond never really manifests itself.

The more competently established element of the story involves the dissection of the class systems. Who of us has not experienced or participated in offering that proper, noble, condescension toward a worker in the home, whether it be a cleaning woman or caretaker of a different race? We see ourselves as the great, kind Jewish people so we extend smiles and “good mornings” with all the self-loving “tolerance” of someone in the position to hire when dealing with someone who needs to be hired. It is a form of spiteless, almost saccharine racism that wraps itself in a (fur) coat of benevolence.

Wolman holds up a mirror to this ugliness and it is a distasteful, guilt inducing image. One stand-out scene involves Nomi running all over town with a large garbage bag filled with clothes that she pulled from her daughter’s closet, looking for Negist to offer her the wonderful gift. When Nomi finally ends up in Negist’s tiny, cramped apartment where about eight workers live together, and presents Negist with the clothing, Negist looks at her with clear, proud eyes and refuses. She plainly says, “I like new clothes. When I want clothes, I got to the store and buy them.” It seems fairly obvious but it comes as a revelation in the film (to Nomi and to the audience).

Nomi’s husband, in a conversation with a male Ethiopian worker (hired to help out at a garden party/Bar-Mitzvah) marvels after he is told by the worker that in Ethiopia he was an actor in the theater. “You have theater in Ethiopia?” he says to the worker’s already expected and accepted disappointment. Are we that bad? Do we embarrass ourselves that regularly due to indifference and arrogance? Dan Wolman is telling us that this is a problem in need of fixing and all it takes, however difficult the task, is to seriously view all people as brothers and sisters.

(Writers notes are in italics)

Q: Is Foreign Sister a social commentary about Israeli culture or just a social commentary?

A: The film is full of little details - which make it more then just a film that could have happened anywhere. Nomi's teenage son is getting ready for his history exam -

We learn that the exam is about the expulsion of the Jews by the Spaniards in 1942. She asks him why were the Jews expelled - because of their religion, etc. etc.-

So here, for an Israeli watching the film, after having understood from the first scene of the film that the illegal foreign workers expulsions take place every day, and many of them live in fear... the bringing up of the Spanish expulsion says in a way - no - it's not simple - we who have suffered should be careful - should be more human...

Later on the Ethiopian friend who comes to the party (the same man who claimed he was an actor in Ethiopia) remarks - you the Jews were wandering around the world... now we (are the new Jews) traveling from one place to the other trying to make a living... This kind of a comment means nothing in a film about Turkish workers in Germany.

(A similar/contrasting argument was made by Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman in his notes for his film Divine Intervention – read the argument here)

I will pick two important plot developments which are very particular Israeli.

The episode in the film when the go to the Arab hospital is based on fact.

A few years ago illegal workers went for treatment to Arab hospitals - because of fear that they'll be reported on to the police and also because they felt more comfortable in Christian Hospitals.

This by the way has changed some what as Hospitals in Israel have changed their policy and in most cases treat patients - even if they don't have "papers".

But, with the demonization of Arabs - Moslems - in the Israeli (and U.S) media today - going to the Arab hospital means something. It's just a small hospital. The doctors are no angels; they even fail in rescuing Angarge (Ethiopian character who dies). But, again -it has a meaning - these are human beings, people like us. Had this been another hospital in England - it would have been something else....

Yes, the film does say something specific about Israel and Israeli culture.

----------------------------------------------------

Send comments to Jordan about this article to jtrick1@aol.com