الشاعر تيسير نظمي لجمهور الشاعر الكبير محمود درويش: تفضلوا آلاف الريتات (جمع ريتا)
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Nelly Tagar as Daffi (left) and Dana Ivgy as Zohar Photograph: Zeitgeist Films |
Zero Motivation review – an off-kilter look at female soldiers in the IDF
/5stars
Writer-director Talya Lavie
was inspired by her own time in the Israeli Defense Force and paints a picture
of day-dreaming, gender politics and high heels
If you show a staple gun in the first act it
has to go off in the third. But that’s about the only dramatic principle to
which the characters in Zero Motivation adhere. Normally that would be a
problem, seeing as how this film is set in the army, but it’s not like we’re on
the battle lines. Writer-director Talya Lavie drew from her own personal
experience in the Israeli Defense Forces, setting her first feature in the
dullest administrative office in a remote desert base. The elevator pitch
“Girls meets M*A*S*H” may seem a tad reductive, but it’s apt. The angst is the same
though the specifics, and urgency, has changed.
The Non-Commissioned Officer in
Charge of Paper and Shredding, Daffi (Nelly Tagar), has devoted her life’s
efforts toward one goal: to transfer her compulsory military service to a base
in Tel Aviv. Visions of walking amid gleaming towers in high heels are the only
thing keeping her alive. This potential abandonment causes some stress for her
pal Zohar (Dana Ivgy), a coarse and slightly unkempt fellow secretary/soldier
whose sole job, it would seem, is playing Minesweeper on an outdated computer.
Zohar is a Yossarian-esque rascal, the only one who can see that everyone else
at the base is nuts. If Daffi goes, Zohar will be left alone with the twin
ditzes who sing pop songs and twirl their gum, a brusque Russian immigrant who
makes fatalist remarks in a voice so low certain dogs couldn’t hear it and the
by-the-book commander whose twin passions are paperwork and brown-nosing. It’s
a textbook case of an individual mortified by dense authority. If Bill Murray were
a twenty-something Israeli woman, he’d be Dana Igvy as the disheveled
kibbutznik in Zero Motivation.
The bulk of the film plays out in
episodic form (indeed, it is segmented in three chapters) but this sitcom-like
setup serves a purpose. Characters weave in and out. Someone that seems key
will drift away as someone that seemed merely a gag takes center stage for a
while. This approach works well to underscore the feeling of a life in which
unseen and inexplicable forces are in control. In time, Zohar’s brusk exterior
reveals an inner timidity beneath her khaki parka. She’s actually a virgin,
likely the only one on the base, and if dating weren’t difficult enough these
days try working that out as a new platoon of handsome paratroopers bunk down
for just a few nights.
The comedy in Zero Motivation
ranges from wordplay to visual gags to some “saw that coming down Broadway”
moments of comeuppance. There is, however, an undercurrent of sadness,
particularly with Rama (Shani Klein) the group leader. Clearly she’s the foil –
she keeps a framed photo of Margaret Thatcher on her wall – but it’s not her
fault her battalion of paper filers are the Bad News Bears of the Israeli
desert, and the way in which the male officers disregard her smacks of unspoken
sexism. She’s passed over for a promotion for another woman, but are any men in
her position asked to serve coffee?
There are no references to Hamas
or Palestinians or Arabs or anything else connoting the unending conflict in
the Middle East. Yet our bumbling leads are reminded time and again that “we
are at war” and “our soldiers are dying”. The only nod to headlines or history
is a shot of a woman stapling up posters commemorating Israel’s numerous
conflicts from 1948 through to our current decade. The degree to which real
danger and bloodshed is ignored in Zero Motivation adds a strange urgency what
could otherwise be an Office Space-like lark. When the movie does take some
dark turns, it’s almost a relief.
There are some whose politics have
no room for a film like this. “This is not a laughing matter”, they’ll say.
This attitude negates reality, and perhaps negates storytelling in general.
Zero Motivation is a shot of honesty, in which short-term goals are far more
important than larger geo-political ones. Perhaps because they are the only
ones over which we have any control.
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