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JERUSALEM 2017

Doubtful: Love can’t save us all

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- Eliran Elya’s first feature film, awarded in Jerusalem, takes an honest and mature look at two lost souls travelling down a pre-destined path

Doubtful: Love can’t save us all

From the well-choreographed Dardennian hand-held tracking shot that opens the new Israeli film Doubtful [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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, to the tight and devastating closing frame that ends it, Eliran Elya’s debut feature is an extraordinary emotional journey. Inspired partly by a tragic murder that took place in 2012, this a small-scale story about a teacher and his student, which may tread familiar film ground, but succeeds in bypassing clichés with its maturity and great sense of humanity. These are just some of the reasons why Doubtful won the Best First Feature and Best Cinematography awards at this year’s Jerusalem Film Festival.

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Assi (Ran Danker) is a young filmmaker from Tel Aviv, sentenced to community service after a motorbike accident, which still haunts him. He is assigned to work with a group of juvenile delinquents in a southern Israeli town, where he teaches them to express themselves through the art of filmmaking, and to find their own unique voices. Suspicious at first, the kids slowly open up to their new teacher, especially Eden, one of the group’s most assertive and troubled boys. Assi is intrigued by this special boy, and the two form a bond. But while Assi sees the potential in Eden, and becomes a kind of a mentor to him, he is also blind to the truth about the kid’s emotional problems and lack of guidance, which have already corrupted him. And try as he might, Assi cannot save Eden from his violent nature.

Elya, who also wrote the screenplay, creates damaged characters here with undeniable love and compassion, and tells the story with a minimalistic approach which adds a great deal to the realism and honesty of the film. For his first shot as a film director, Elya surrounded himself with some of Israeli cinema’s top crew members, such as cinematographer Shai Goldman (The Band’s Visit [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
) and editor Arik Leibovitch (Zero Motivation), who use their own experience and knowledge to make a solid and well-structured story. Praise must also go to the film’s casting director, Orit Azoulay, who scouted non-actors for the kids’ roles, almost all of whom are unforgettable. Especially astounding is the boy who plays Eden - 16 year-old Adar Hazazi, who gives one of the most incredible performance of the year as this lost young soul. Hazazi brings a chaotic charisma to the screen, and it’s almost unbelievable that this is his first acting gig.

Apart from the visible influences of the Dardenne brothers (especially their 2002 film The Son [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
), Doubtful has moments in which the kids break the fourth wall, with the use of Assi’s mini-dv camera, that were certainly inspired by another great and evoking teacher-student film, Ryan Fleck’s 2006 film Half Nelson, starring Ryan Gosling. But although Doubtful is not ground-breaking cinema, and Assi’s emotional arc comes across as more scripted than organic, it is Elya’s strong directing abilities and the intimacy he creates between us and the characters that makes his first feature more than just a promising debut, but an impressive film in its own right.

The film is produced by Rogovin Brothers Ltd.

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