Israeli filmmaker’s suicide bombing drama
WHEN acclaimed Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis read A B Yehoshua’s novel A Woman in Jerusalem, he knew immediately he would adapt it for the screen, even if it was something of a departure.
Riklis’s previous films, such as The Lemon Tree and The Syrian Bride, were rooted in the cultural, political and physical upheaval of his homeland, dripping with insightful, if subversive, social comment.
Despite its inciting incident, which involves a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, The Human Resources Manager is not a political film and there are precious few trademark acerbic asides.
In their place are a smattering of barely-there allegories, nuanced and muted.
Despite this, the film’s knowing tone and deft balance of blackest humour, pathos and drama are right up his street.
“My last two films The Lemon Tree and The Syrian Bride concentrated more on the conflict,” Riklis told The AJN.
“It was terrifying for me because there’s a certain expectation of you after you make those kind of films. People think I have to stay on the same track, but I must have the freedom as a filmmaker. The Human Resources Manager was a totally different kind of treatment and I’m glad it worked.”
The Human Resources Manager is a drama/comedy about a bakery manager who escorts the body of a female employee killed by a suicide bomb to her home in an unnamed Eastern European backwater town. The cast includes Mark Ivanir in the title role, Gila Almagor and Noah Silver.
But Riklis couldn’t resist antagonising the establishment, and the result is a subtle subtext, which blends unobtrusively with the narrative.
“It’s a departure for me to a certain degree from the more direct approach to the Middle East conflict, but on the other hand the story stems from the conflict because it starts with a suicide bomb,” he says.
“When the film embarks on this kind of hallucinatory road movie I felt it was something else I could deal with, a different style that was demanded of me.”
Whatever the journey though, The Human Resources Manager was well received in its country of origin and around the world, and was in the running to represent Israel at the 2011 Oscars, where it failed to win a nomination.
The Human Resources Manager opens on May 5.
REPORT: Adam Kamien
PHOTO: Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis.
comments