Local Angel (Dir. Udi Aloni)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Local Angel (Dir. Udi Aloni): <http://localangel.udialoni.com/>

*****  Artist's intoxicating film assembles a mosaic of Israeli-Arab struggle

SUZANNE WEISS
Bulletin Correspondent . . .

A white marble angel stands in the Palestinian-Christian cemetery in
Jaffa. The angel seems to be moving away from the bodies it is
guarding into the sea at its back. Across the sea is the West -- the
future. The angel is blown back into tomorrow. This is only one of
the angelic conundrums in Udi Aloni's highly symbolic, highly
artistic film "Local Angel," to be screened as part of the San
Francisco Jewish Film Festival on July 19 and 26.

The subtitle of "Local Angel" describes the film as being made up of
"Theological Political Fragments." And fragmented it is, as the
camera jumps from New York to Israel, from the Dome of the Rock to a
discotheque.

And the angels of the title are as numerous as the meanings you can
attribute to them. There is Walter Benjamin's "Angel of History,"
which takes off from a painting by Paul Klee. There is the angel who
spoke to Abraham and told him not to sacrifice his son (although
Aloni suggests that he may have done so anyway.) And there are a
couple of genuine "local angels," the filmmaker's mother, famed
Israeli peace activist Shulamit Aloni, and her Palestinian
counterpart Hanan Ashrawi.

Udi Aloni is a visual artist, and his movie, inspired by the events
of Sept. 11, takes him from his successful life in New York back to
the land of his birth in an attempt to understand this tragedy in
terms of his own upbringing and experience. His on-camera search
ranges from discussions with professors from both Israeli and
Palestinian universities to an interview with Chairman Yasser Arafat
to surreal scenes involving angry Arab rap singers and traditional
Hebraic chants.

A black-hooded drummer beats out a mad tattoo. A Latin Stabat Mater
is sung against a background of gyrating dancers in a disco. Israeli
soldiers check Arab identification cards as a sexy dancer sings a
love song. Soon the same girl turns into a mourner at a Jewish
funeral. It is all about sameness and contrasts. Its very historical
and very personal, the 42-year-old first-time filmmaker's love song
to his mother, to Israel and to the peace process. But all is not
sweetness and light. The two Alonis do not always agree, but the
on-camera scenes with Shulamit Aloni, now in her 70s, and her friend
Hanan Ashrawi, are anchors of reality dropped into the symbolic sea
of the whole.

Not only is the music -- pop, traditional, rap and Tamir Muskat's
original score -- great, but some of the insights really make you sit
up and notice. A female professor at Hebrew University explains the
concept that Israel will be the site of the Third Temple, therefore
justifying evicting non-believers from the premises. Just a concept
but, one that provides yet one more rationale for Arab exclusion.

Another academic, the filmmaker's friend Nono, notes that "sending
[Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon to fight terror is like sending bin
Laden to build a building."

The 70-minute film was shown last year at both the Jerusalem and
Toronto International Film Festivals. Although there is no actual
plot, it is meticulously put together, rather like a mosaic. And just
when you think you've got the whole picture figured out, Aloni hits
you with a final quote, this one from Franz Kafka, perhaps the most
inscrutable Jewish writer of them all: "The messiah will come one day
after his arrival." . . .

<http://www.jewishsf.com/bk030711/etff24a.shtml>   *****

*****   Local Angel

Neil Friedman
Menemsha Entertainment
1157 S. Beverly Drive, 2nd Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90035
Tel/ 0 310-712-3720
Fax/ 0 310-277-6602
neilF@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<http://www.sfjff.org/sfjff23/movies/sources.php>   *****


*****   Local Angel LLC
529 W 20th Street
New York, NY 10011

Phone: 212.645.5947
Email: localangel@xxxxxxxxxxxx   *****
--
Yoshie

* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>,
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>