Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Judea and Samaria Go The Cinema Way

Yehezkel Lang has an opinion about the way the media relates to those civilian Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria:-

...Lang has no expectations of the media. "The media's colors and hues are all the same," he says. "I don't expect them to give honest reports about the people in the outposts or the settlements of Judea and Samaria. Even if in the end there are one or two journalists who are 'for us', they will always point out that they 'don't work for us' instead of rising above and providing reports of a different kind."

Lang says the media is the incarnation of evil and distortion for the way it portrays the settlers.

"True, I am being blunt," he says, "but the very bluntness of my messages is not different from the bluntness with which Joseph Cedar presents a hesder yeshiva student who is planning to blow up the Temple Mount, in his film 'Ha-hesder' ('Time of Favor'), or from the bluntness of many other films in which the settlers are presented as evil incarnate."


So what did he do?

He made a film:

The video was shot at the actual Samarian settlement of Yitzhar. One of the scenes shows Yaakov studying the ruins of a building destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces. Another scene shows the way in which Palestinians have damaged his orchard. Throughout the series, Yaakov the settler is portrayed as a victim while Meged is shown as a liar.

The part of Yaakov is played by Yisrael Schreiber, a resident of Yitzhar, who is not a professional actor. Eli Shimon, a graduate of the Nissan Nativ acting studio, plays the part of Meged. Lang, also a graduate of Nissan Nativ and of the Ma'aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts, acts in the mini-series as well.


And the outline of the plot?

...radio reporter Yaron Meged contacts Yaakov, a hilltop dweller with long sidelocks and tsitsit (ritual fringes) blowing in the wind.

Only a few moments earlier, the settler had thrown Meged out of his house and vehemently refused to be interviewed, but once Meged is attacked by a terrorist at the Hawara junction, he begs Yaakov to come and save him, and the settler obliges.

Only a few minutes elapse and the two men find themselves hiding behind the journalist's car as the terrorist, firing nonstop, closes in on them.

Meged breathes a sigh of relief when he sees Yaakov, but not for long.

"Take the dog down," he shouts to Yaakov as the bullets fly over their heads.

"What kind of language are you using?" Yaakov teases him. "What about your coexistence? Living together? Two states for two people?"

"What relevance does that have?" Meged shouts at him. "Take him down already."

And then the settler reveals to the journalist that he doesn't have a revolver. "Are you crazy? No revolver in a place like this?" Meged screams at him.

"Because of your friends, they confiscated my revolver," Yaakov replies.



Here it is but you need to wait for it to load.

(Kippah tip: MF)

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