Footnote: See Under: 'Oscar Contender'
Written by Laura Blum Monday, 16 January 2012 18:17
Don't miss Footnote/Hearat Shulayim when it opens this winter, for it may be another 2,000 years before Talmudic scholars return to your cineplex. Though perhaps a dozen knockoffs are being rushed into production, now that Joseph Cedar’s father-son drama, set in the hallowed halls of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, is in the running for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Footnote also snagged the Best Screenplay Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and garnered critical clucks during its U.S. premiere at the 49th New York Film Festival. Not bad for a film that started life starved for funds and industry enthusiasm. As Cedar demonstrated in his previous features, Beaufort (also an Oscar nominee), Campfire and Time of Favor, he has a knack for moral complexity, psychological grit and intrigue of biblical proportions.
Meet the Shkolniks, Eliezer (Shlomo Bar Aba) and his middle-aged son, Uriel (Lior Ashkenazi). Reeking of bitterness from eons of academic slights, Eliezer is geek from way back, when geekdom wasn't cool. He spent the first three decades of his career reconstructing a lost Talmud text, only for a colleague to unearth the real thing just before Eliezer's pub date. Ever since, he has nursed his academic obsessions and resentments in self-righteous retreat.
Uriel, on the other hand, wields a wicked charm and a flair for the trendy, which has made him the darling of the academy -- if not of his purist father. Footnote opens with this rising star accepting an award that has stubbornly eluded Eliezer.
Another prop Eliezer has long coveted is the venerable Israel Prize. When he learns that his day has finally come and he's this year's pick, the aging philologist puffs out his chest.
In a gobsmack worthy of the Coen brothers, it turns out there was a mix-up: The trophy was intended for the younger Shkolnik. You won't want to miss the scene where Uriel convinces the Israel Prize committee to go ahead with the error and make Eliezer happy. Rarely have seating arrangements offered such comic relief.
But when the old man publicly maligns his son's scholarship, family tensions threaten to snap. Hell hath no fury like an academic scorned.
As egos and ethics come in for a bruising, the tone sobers up from arch and satirical — even farcical -- to a touch of the tragic. Cedar has fashioned a narrative that plays out as comedy and thriller but also as poignant melodrama. At a recent press conference in New York, the American-Israeli filmmaker explained that the image of a "tempest in teapot" provided tonal inspiration. "We're in this tiny little teapot...but there's a storm, and it's a storm that can kill [the few inside]," he said.
Truth is a key theme whipping about this teapot. At a time when pursuit of absolutes menaces Israel and the world, Cedar invites us to enjoy his fable as entertainment while also parsing it like a good Talmudist.
As we read between the lines, we see the link he's drawing between aggression and truth. According to Cedar, "From the point of view of those who strive to reach the truth, compromise is the enemy. They don't want harmony in the world; they want truth." He added, "And that's the source of violence, because if you can't compromise there are no boundaries to how far you'll go to protect the truth."
Other issues to look for onscreen include loyalty and betrayal, family and career and envy and pride. The human need for recognition, Cedar reveals, can bring out our fiercest competitive nature. How fitting that the film was conceived "as a boxing match between two Talmudic professors."
Far from an exercise in pilpulism, Footnote commands us to consider our obligations as members of a family or community versus our selfish drives as individuals. It's an addition to the swelling canon of Israeli films that avoid politics with a vengeance, yet serve as sharp political commentary.
