2024-01-30 12:24:47
In his new feature film entitled “The Journey to Eilat” released on January 24, director Yona Rozenkier portrays a father and his son traveling on a tractor. Their goal: to cross Israel in less than a week. The opportunity for them to get to know each other better.
An old man hanging from a tree that must be taken down… This is how the first scene of the film “The Journey to Eilat” begins. A surreal, funny and burlesque scene that will push Albert, a war veteran, to bet a bottle of whiskey that he can cross the country from north to south, on a tractor, in less than a week. Ben, his unemployed and grumpy son, accompanies him. The unusual duo embarks on a journey at 35 km/h which will allow them to discover and appreciate each other, while revealing certain little-known sides of Israel.
>> To see: the trailer for the film “The trip to Eilat”
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Humor for message
Awarded at the Jerusalem festival, “The Journey to Eilat” may approach a rural Israel marked by wars, but humor always predominates. “This film has, basically, a very serious message to convey, admits Yona Rozenkier in the Vertigo show on January 23, 2024. I believe that you have to make people laugh to succeed in touching their hearts and making them hear things they wouldn’t normally admit.”
Like Emir Kusturica’s films, the characters imagined by Yona Rozenkier are crazy, funny and intelligent at the same time. “The trip to Eilat” also allows the director of three nationalities (he is Israeli, but also Franco-Swiss) to address less visible facets of Israel.
A divided society
As they cross the country, Albert and Ben meet Russians, Ethiopians, Palestinians and kibbutzniks. A melting pot which does not prevent prejudices, far from it. The father and son are treated as Arabs and gypsies. At another point, the duo goes to a Georgian restaurant catering only to Georgians, where the waitress does not speak Hebrew.
Through her film, Yona Rozenkier notes the existence of these prejudices in order to better break them, in order to find the humanity behind them. “As for the character of Albert,” he confided in the 12:45 p.m. of January 23. “At first, we say to ourselves that he is an ‘alcoholic idiot’, before discovering that he is very fine and special.” And the director concludes: “There is also a lot of beauty in Israel, but we don’t show it.” A complex and burlesque film, “The Trip to Eilat” proves that humor and the absurd allow you to escape from all critical situations.
Comments collected by Pierre Philippe Cadert
Web adaptation: Sarah Clément
“The trip to Eilat” by Yona Rozenkier, with Yoel Rozenkier, Shmuel Vilozni, Aviva Negosa, to be seen in French-speaking cinemas since January 24, 2024.
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