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Comedy About Israeli Army Big Hit by Doniphan Blair
Nelly Tagar as a spaced-out Israeli Army recruit in Talya Lavie's new hit comedy, 'Zero Motivation'. photo: courtesy T. Lavie
WITH THE MIDDLE EAST HEATING UP another immense notch, radical Islamists pledging to eliminate all others—including other Muslims but especially Jews—and Israel finding cells of its Muslims citizens supporting that scenario (NY Times, 1/18/15), is it a good time for a comedy about the Israeli army?
"Totally!" the female stars of "Zero Motivation" would shout in unison, if asked. Indeed, "Zero Motivation" is sweeping Israel and much of the globe—albeit not Arab countries, where Israeli films are forbidden, although their comedians and espionage chiefs might be taking peaks.
"Zero Motivation" concerns a bevy of women recruits whom their female commanding officer is desperately—if too not harshly (you don't want to upset them!)—trying to keep on track to complete their minimal assignments, mostly making coffee and copies. See the trailer here.
It was directed and written by Talya Lavie, a young, striking-looking woman (one can't help but notice) but with an immense funny bone—she has done comic books and animation—as well as directorial skill. "The Substitute" (2006), her thesis film from the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem, also concerns women in the army and took a bunch of awards internationally.
Indeed, "Zero Motivation" was the most successful Israeli movie in the last 25 years AND the most successful movie—from anywhere (Hollywood usually dominates)— of last year. More then half a million Israelis have seen it—a big number in such a small country.
Talya Lavie, director of 'Zero Motivation', in front of the film's poster. photo: courtesy T. Lavie
"I still enjoy it," Nelly Tagar, who stars as Daffi (and daffy her character certainly is), told me when we met at the offices of the film's West Coast publicist, Larsen Associates.
"I was Q-and-A-ing every day this week and every time the audience laughs, I am just like 'Aahh!' They get the movie, even people who don't know anything about Israel except what they hear on the news."
And so do the critics, given "Zero Motivation"'s awards at film festivals like Tribecca, where it won Best Narrative Feature, or reviews in publications like the Daily Beast.
A classically-trained actress, and rather petit (scotch that Israeli soldier stereotype), Tagar was touring the US for "Zero Motivation" while her co-star, Dana Ivgy, who plays Zohar, Daffi's eventually-spurned best friend, took Europe.
"In Israel we have so many movies about the army. I can say about 40 percent of the films in the history of Israel are about army life—like 'Lebanon' [2009] and 'Dance with Bashir' [2008]," Ms Tagar told me.
"Just one, 'Close to Home' [2005], is about women in the army but it was a lesbian tragedy—a real drama. This is the first time an Israeli feature movie tells the story of those administration girls."
"Zero Motivation" kills, with humor, two sacred cows simultaneously, A) that the Israel Defense Force is all business, and B) that its women, who are obliged to serve after high school for two years (the men do three), are tough as nails.
While it seems like you might not want to be broadcasting this, especially as your country's enemies are entering a fanatical anti-humor stage—literally sending out overseas hits on cartoonists—Israelis can take a joke. And this time the world is laughing with them.
Tamara Klingon plays Irena a Russian immigrant verging on the edge of nervous breakdown in 'Zero Motivation'. photo: courtesy T. Lavie
"The movie went out two weeks before the war started [in Gaza on July 8]. We were afraid the movie would fail because who would go see this movie while rockets are flying over Tel Aviv?" Ms Tagar said.
"But they did. The movie was a safe place where you can go and relax and laugh about something. In the movie, they always say 'There is war outside; our soldiers are being killed; and you are crying over your little... ?'"
While "MASH" (1970), the famous film by Robert Altman, and subsequent hit television show, worked as comedy, it covered the Korean War, not the Vietnam War ongoing at that time.
Advertised as a dark comedy, "Zero Motivation" is barely satire. Even the hilarious stapler fight scene is completely realistic because Director Lavie so thoroughly develops her characters' relationships and motivation. Indeed, the women recreate a high school-like social scene: pairing up, singing pop songs, doing make-up, talking about love and, of course, breaking up and ganging up on each other.
Even their tough and chunky sergeant, who wants to get ahead in the military and is played to the hilt by Shani Klein, lets them rest in the shade during desert drills and barely punishes them for their endless infractions.
The only real threat of violence is meted out by the Russian immigrant Irena, excellently rendered by Tamara Klingon (who is obviously ready for her 'Star Trek' turn). Despite being so traumatized she is about to have nervous breakdown, which is why she insists on accompanying Daffi on her one date, Irena grabs an Uzi machinegun and fends off not a Palestinian attacker but Daffi's date raper.
Nelly Tagar, being interviewed at the Larson Associate's office in San Francisco. photo: D. Blair
The perpetrator, a paratrooper played perfectly by Yuval Segal, is also humanized with some great lines, notably in that edgy Israeli specialty: Holocaust humor.
"They busted our asses, it was like the Holocaust," he says about basic training, offending Irena, who is not used to the hard-hitting humor of native-Israeli Sabras. "They were like Nazis."
"A lot of people didn't like the date rape scene. Men took the nudity very hard," Ms Tagar recalled. "They ask if Talia [Lavie, the director] is a lesbian, who hates men. People are not used to seeing full frontal male nudity," albeit in shadow.
"[Israel] is not like here, where you have 'Game of Thrones', where you see nudity all the time. It's not a conservative country—you can say bad words on TV—but you don't see a lot of nudity, just women."
"I love that scene. It is hard for me to say something bad about the movie because I just love it. It is the dream of every girl to be rescued that way—saved by Irena with a gun! She is an amazing actress. There are more then a million Russians in Israel and each of them saw themselves in Irena."
"People ask me after the movie is it really like that? Yes, growing up in Israel is like this. The Holocaust, it's like WiFi, you don't see it but it exists and effects you for the rest of your life."
"This movie, people loved it so much because it said something so real about the life there, the frustration you feel from people constantly telling you 'How dare you have those self-centered feelings when our soldiers are getting killed. Stop being a baby!'"
While surprisingly shy at first, Nelly Tagar really opened up in our interview. photo: D. Blair
Ironically, for all the Middle East's horror and death—two hundred thousand and counting in Syria, almost double all the wars involving Israel combined—it is more about art war then actual war.
Suicide bombings don't kill that many people, in fact, but they terrorize so efficiently due to the violence they inflict on our imagination, our images of the sanctity of life, the trust we need to gather in public to pursue basic activities. Humor restores those human qualities.
"I hope [the film] gets seen in Arab countries. A few years ago, we had a film called "The Band Visits' [Eran Kolirin, 2007]," Ms Tagar said.
Also a comedy about a delicate situation—co-produced by Eilon Ratzkovsky, the Executive Producer of "Zero Motivation", as it happens, "The Band Visits" follows an Egyptian marching band as it gets lost in an out-of-the-way Israeli town. It even includes the extremely taboo subject of an Arab-Jewish romance.
"They were doing underground shows in Egypt because they don't show Israeli films in Arab countries. It is not allowed."
The exception, of course, is "Paradise Now" (also 2005), a true "Eastern" about two Palestinian friends weighing the options of becoming suicide bombers, by the Arab-Israeli director, Hany Abu-Assad. Produced by the Jewish-Israeli, Bero Beyer, which earned him death threats from reactionary Israelis, it is one of the most powerful films to emerge from the Middle East largely because of its taboo subject: rejecting violence.
"If they saw 'Zero Ambition', it might change somebody's mind a little bit. When I was in London [with the film], there were demonstrations outside the BAFTA theater [British Academy of Film and Television Arts], where it was playing. If they saw the movie, they would see it is not a political movie about the Israeli army—it is about women everywhere. That is why people from all over the world can relate and laugh."
"It could be the office, a college, a group of young people—first time away from home. People are people everywhere, that is what I think," Ms Tagar said.
Cute, comedic and a great raconteur, soon Ms Tagar was on a roll. photo: D. Blair
"I don't think the Israeli army is evil—it is complicated. There are cool things in the army but the majority have frustrating jobs. They have too many people—they invent jobs. Girls like Daffi and Zohar are denigrated; they make them serve the coffee."
"There is even a military magician, he goes around bases entertaining." In fact, during her tour of duty, Ms Tagar was involved in putting on performances for Holocaust Remembrance Day and the like.
"Until 15 years ago, just boys could be pilots but then there was the Supreme Court ruling [which] opened it up and now three or four girls graduate every year [as pilots]."
"Before I was in the army, I believed chauvinism was history, something my grandmother used to feel. But when I was drafted, it was the first time I felt I was being judged by my gender. The first time I felt like saying, 'Stop staring at me and listen to what I am saying!'"
"When I was in the army, we were nine girls and 600 boys—can you imagine the amount of power that I had?" she continued.
"The army is the biggest school of sex," Ms Tagar concluded, laughing. "I mean, you take a bunch of 18 and 19 year-old girls and boys—the oldest is like 32—and you put them in the desert, with the hormones raging?!?"
"Girls sleep in a different place than boys—they try to separate them as much as they can—but a lot of love stories happen in the army."
Nevertheless, "Sexual harassment is everywhere, global, every place. But now there are more laws and people are more aware of what you can and can not do. When my mom was in the army, it is fine to slap her ass and say, 'Give us the coffee,' but now it is illegal."
Ms Tagar's father is a Bulgarian who immigrated to Israel after World War II while her mom's parents fled Germany in the 1930s to Tel Aviv, where her grandfather helped start the fire department.
The staple gun fight between spurned friends, Daffi and Zohar, climaxes one story in 'Zero Motivation'. photo; courtesy T. Lavie
She started acting as kid, garnering the lead in a film about an abused child at 10. "I caught the disease, but then I took a break, it was too much for me—I was very shy as a teenager. I dropped out of an art high school and went to a regular high school. I wanted to be a tour guide."
Nevertheless, she went to an acting studio after the army and was classically trained at Israel's national theater. "I do mostly classical roles, Shakespeare and stuff," she concluded.
When I asked her about the possible impact of visionary films in the Middle East, she told me: "I loved 'The Green Prince' [see CineSource article]. It is a great film. Make films not war. I believe film will bring peace."
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached .