Nadav Lapid, who won the Berlin Golden Bear for Synonyms, blasts his way into the Cannes competition with Ha’Berech (Ahed’s Knee). Whereas his previous film was about a man searching to shrug off his Israeli identity, Lapid’s latest outing is all about a man confronting his Israeli identity and painfully dissecting what it means to be a man of this country.
As with Synonyms, the character is loosely based on the director’s own personal trajectory, albeit in exaggerated form. In this case, Lapid interweaves the story of a filmmaker on a journey to a far outpost of his country to show his film while simultaneously saying farewell to his dead mother. The pain is raw, whether it’s the pain of his bereavement or the pain that he feels for what his country has become.
Lapid is pulling no punches here: his anger at his government and his frustration with his fellow countrymen’s lack of reaction to the destruction of Palestine is felt viscerally through his leading man. In a nice touch, the opening credits state that the film was made with the aid of Israeli state funding, an unlikely possibility given the subject matter and the anti-government content here. This is a loud, in-your-face film that may lack subtlety but has passion in abundance.