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Israeli
filmmaker Avi Mograbi explores his country in August.
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Avi
Mograbi, Israel, 2002, 72 min
It
begins with former Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu giving a
famous political speech in which he repeats over and over again in
Hebrew: “They are afraid; they are afraid.” These words are a
chilling symbol of what is rotten in the state of Israel as daringly
explored in Israeli filmmaker Avi Mograbi’s August, which
showed last month at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New
York.
As
the festival concluded in June, August left a lasting mark by
ferreting out the most blatant anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian biases
ever imaginable. The movie followed random events in August 2001,
when Israel was “filled with anger, frustration and fear.” It is
a raw, glaring, yet also absurdly humorous look at the Israeli
populace as they let their anti-Arab sentiments unwittingly froth in
front of the unapologetic camera.
For
Mograbi, the month of August is a month of loathe, the bane of all
months, and a “metaphor for what is hateful in the state of
Israel.” Though is wife hails August as a wonderful month – the
month when their son was born – Mograbi says to the camera,
“August is when you stand in the middle of a great blaze waiting
for it to be over.”
To
prove his point Mograbi took to the streets of Israel, mainly in Tel
Aviv, and entered into often-heated tête-à-tête’s with the
locals. He spliced this with footage of auditions he hosted for
Israeli actresses to play Miriam Goldstein, the wife of Baruch
Goldstein who committed a horrible massacre against Arabs and
Muslims in Hebron in 1994.
He
also takes on dual roles, spoofing himself as a pretentious director
and also his wife (by wrapping a pink towel around his head). These
hilarious scenes mixed in with disturbing footage of Israeli locals
makes for a uniquely strange voyage into realms seldom seen by the
West yet frighteningly apparent here: Bizarre, angry, cruel,
prejudiced, discriminatory and sometimes hateful.
At
various moments of the film Mograbi walks the streets of Tel Aviv
and other Israeli towns with just a handheld camera. He captures the
best and worst of Israelis, who often strike arguments with him on
his right to film. Nearly every time he is met with hostility and
resentment for filming the “bad.” He is constantly told to turn
his camera off.
In
one scene he is with a crowd of Israelis who cheer police as they
viscously beat and arrest young Arabs who had been throwing stones
at them. His camera veers between the beatings and the shocking
support of the crowd, who begins to turn on him. The police tell him
to shut his camera; that he is filming “religious” provocation.
“You don’t film [Arabs] throwing stones!” they exclaim.
Another
telling moment comes when he films a group of Israelis donning
traditional Palestinian garb in Tel Aviv to protest for Arab rights
and equality. One well-dressed woman looks on in shock, saying,
“Now I feel discriminated against because the Arabs came here.”
But
the most disturbing scene comes at the feet of “innocent”
Israeli children in Tel Aviv Heights, a particularly affluent part
of Tel Aviv. Children flock to the camera, preening and goofing for
Mograbi while simultaneously spouting vile statements against
Palestinian Arabs. “You just tell everyone that the Arabs are
going six feet under,” one young teenage girl casually tells
Mograbi.
These
scenes are a slap in the face for Israel and anyone who sees them.
Many Muslims often glibly pin the prejudice badge around Israel’s
neck, but this is a bit of proof positive that perhaps they are
justified. One audience member at the film festival told Mograbi
following the film that he “shows the worst of everything. I
wouldn’t want to live there.”
Mograbi
said that he wasn’t seeking discriminating situations to film, but
he ended up shooting what he disliked “because living [in Israel]
is getting harder and harder. I didn’t think the violence and
aggression would be put forth to me,” he said.
“These
films are about responsibility – who we are, what our lives are
constituted for,” Mograbi added. “This is who I am, this is
spontaneous. There’s no denying that Israel has been practicing
state terror for many years.” Mograbi said that before the film
premiered in Israel, he gave numerous interviews to the eager
Israeli press. But following the premier there was not one review in
any Israeli newspaper, magazine or news program. It’s a sadly
funny revealing moment into the tight weave of Israel’s anti-Arab
political fabric.
The
film closes with a shot of current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
standing on the sidelines of a political rally. As Israelis wildly
cheer, the camera slowly zooms on Sharon with a smug smile on his
face. We are drawn closer and closer until we are engulfed in
Sharon’s eyes, unable to escape the terror to come. It’s a
fitting conclusion to a potent movie – there is no denying the
force of August. 
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