Film: Turn Left At The End of The World by Avi Nesher

              




Avi Nesher's Israeli-blockbuster-film "Sof HaOlam Smola" (2004) (which has also screened in France as "Au Bout Du Monde A Gauche" and is now touring U.S. Jewish Film festivals as "Turn Left At The End of the World" is an extraordinary film.

It is set in a Negev Desert Development Town in 1968, where immigrants from Morocco from the 50s find new immigrants from India arriving to live across the road from them.

The story is full of quirky and comic and neurotic characters, trying to navigate the unplanned-for frustrations, setbacks, temptations, insecurities and culture shock attendant upon the life of immigrants in a remote place, and speaking in Hindi, English, Arabic, French and Hebrew.

There are many interwoven stories in the film, but it pivots around two 17-year-old girls and their parents. One is Sarah, from India, played by Liraz Charchi, who on her first day in town meets Nicole, from a Moroccan family, played in an amazing performance by Neta Gerti. (This was their first feature film for each actress). They are tempermentally and culturely very different, but are drawn to each other. It is their stormy friendship, and their coming of age story, which is the central narrative. Very highly recommended. See Sof HaOlam Smola.

I was fortunate to see this with Director and Co-Writer Nesher discussing the film after it was shown. Nesher has produced and directed in Hollywood and in Israel many times, and spent some of his teenage years as an Israeli immigrant in New York City. While conceptualizing the film, he met with nearly 800 people who had lived in these Negev development towns to research the story, and then shot the film in a very tense 8-week period as the American-led War in Iraq began in March and April 2003, unsure if their set outside the town of Dimona would be the target of Iraqi Scud missiles. His cast of actors came from France and India as well as Israel.

Negotiations are underway with American Distributors and this may get to release to general Art Movie Houses in the future.

Flying lanterns light up skies, make record books

Interesting report from China Daily: Kongming Lantern Festival made it into the Guinness Book of World Records after the weekend of November 22, 2004, when 1,888 flying lanterns were released into the night skies over the city of Wanning in Hainan.

The event, also known as the Sky Lantern Festival is held annually, and dates back to the Three-Kingdoms period (220-280 AD). One of the famous prime ministers of that period, Zhu Geliang, who is called Kong Ming, invented the flying lantern for use in military communications.

Similar to the fire balloon, the lantern remains airborne as long as its
flame continues to burn.

Book: The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Everyday Life by Ralph Keyes

Ralph Keyes has a written a book that goes through many sectors of society: business, politics, literature, academia, entertainmnet... and recounts how often respected and secure participants have lied about their past. Making the case that culture has changed so that people who lie no longer feel that they are violating a moral or social agreement, he argues persuasively that the cost to society, and to those who habitually "spin" with respect to their own self-esteem, is large. An important and disturbing book. See The Post-Truth Era.

Book: The Price of Loyalty: George W Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill

Ron Suskind's book, written with and about former US Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, provides insight into how President George W. Bush does and does not engage with the issues, does and does not engage with his cabinet members, and does and does not engage with his political team. It is a fascinating insider account, and now very timely because O'Neill, along with Alan Greenspan, were attempting to make the case for some reforms of US Social Security but based on US Government fiscal discipline; a discipline which was totally undermined by irresponsible tax cuts simultaneous to a hugely expensive military engagement in Iraq. See The Price of Loyalty.

Book: Defending Israel by Martin Van Creveld

Martin Van Creveld is a professor of history, focusing on military strategy, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In this 2004 volume (Thomas Dunne Books, ISBN 0-312-32866-4, 188 pages), he makes the case, based on military needs, for Israel to do three things.

First, to construct a barrier wall along the Green Line between pre-1967 Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Second, for the Israeli military to deploy some forces that need to be at a distance from enemy terroritory at sea, in the Mediteranean.

Third, for Israel to withdraw completely from Gaza and from the West Bank.

The book also discusses Weapons of Mass Destruction and their role in the region, why Israel can survive without water resources from the West Bank, using high-technology sensors and electronics in defense, and numerous other specific concerns.

Film Worth Seeing - What the Bleep Do We Know?

How would you make a film about big topics: What is reality? What is consciousness? How is the mind and body connected? What powers do human's have that most of us are trained, because of the civilization we live in, to ignore? How does memory affect attention and perceiption?

You could have interviews with people (science commentators, philosophers, theologians) who are writing provocative books about these subjects. You could use computer animations to illustrate things (like neurons) at the scale that we normally do not see them. Or you could follow a week in the life of a typical anxiety-ridden American worker!

Or you could blend all three of these in a creative collage/narrative, which is what filmmakers William Arntz, Betsy Chasse and Mark Vincente did, and the result is one of the most unique films of recent years. There isn't a single focused point of view about the big question in these films, but there is a "field" in the set of views that goes "below the surface" of everyday person-to-person and person-to-world interaction. See http://www.whatthebleep.com or watch the trailer, (2 minutes 10 seconds) at
http://www.whatthebleep.com/trailer/alt.trailer.wm.high.html