(Berlin) Golda Meir was Israel’s fourth prime minister. And his first prime minister. An iron lady before Magaret Thatcher in Britain, who remains a controversial figure in her heartland – she was born in Ukraine and raised in Milwaukee, USA.
In Golda, an American-British film directed by Guy Nattiv, presented on Monday in its world premiere at the Berlinale, we are trying to restore the image of this politician who was very strongly criticized for the lack of preparation of the Israeli army for the Yom Kippur War, there is 50 years old. By presenting the conflict from his point of view, while blaming him for a sin of pride: that of having trusted his intelligence services too much.
The point of view of this fictional feature film, like that of its main character, is clearly pro-Israel. We briefly discuss, from the outset, the reasons for this war, launched by the Syria of Hafez al-Assad and the Egypt of Anouar el-Sadat: to take back territories (the Golan and the Sinai) occupied by Israel since the Six Day War.
PHOTO JOEL C RYAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Guy Nattiv, director of Golda
As in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the aggressor is beyond doubt. Except perhaps for screenwriter Nicholas Martin, who fails to mention that Israel’s occupation of these territories was done in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 242. The truncated story of Golda rather presents us with Israel as the more or less innocent victim of an aggression.
At the start of this highly conventional docudrama, we briefly find Golda Meir before a commission of inquiry, revisiting in detail the strategies and military decisions of her “war room”, a year after the end of the war. This war which cost many lives and forced the resignation of the Prime Minister, who died of cancer at the age of 80, in 1978.
Helen Mirren, the transcendent Queen Elizabeth II of The Queen by Stephen Frears, plays the role of the famous Israeli politician, which has caused a small controversy over the cultural appropriation of a Jewish character who has nothing to do with British.
The controversy would have done better to dwell on the most obvious scandal of this film: the absolutely ridiculous nasal prosthesis of the actress. Throughout the film, we only see this smooth appendix, through the swirls of cigarette smoke that Golda Meir chains, even during her examinations and medical treatments.
The advantage is that this latex conk makes us forget at times the agreed scenario, the even more banal production, the tearful soundtrack and the high-sounding thesis dialogues of this classic biopic, modeled on 100 similar political films.
Like the nose of its protagonist, Golda is straight out of the mold of films aspiring to make it to the Oscars. Even the very pretty Who by Fire of our national Leonard Cohen does not manage to save the film from the boredom which it distills. In large drops.