Oh g is folks, it's showtime.
People say good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater.
They want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the protection booth.
Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Sun it off.
One Jackson for MBB News.
Sinai Desert, What are you doing here?
Blasco Whoha.
Le all above the bar Onetivo pullo. That is cool, sir by Jaya Rosa Vanjira Rosa b Jay Rossa to your failure when Jay Rossa to your pa.
And television.
Don't take the life so serious.
Huh. Yes, the mod is very funny.
Peace, life is very beautiful.
Is welcome to the projection booth.
I'm your host.
Mike White joined me once again. Is mister yi Adelstein.
Hello, Hello, Hello.
Also joining us as professor will humans Hello there. On this special episode, we are looking at the nineteen eighty six film from writer director Raffi Bouque Avanti Popolo. Set at the end of the Six Day War, the film tells the tale of a handful of Egyptian soldiers as they travel through the Sinai Desert on their way to the Suez Canal along the way they are thrown into
some very precarious situations. We will be spoiling the film as we go along, So if you do want anything Ruin, please turn off the podcast and come back after you have seen it.
It is out there.
Not the easiest film in the world to see, but I guarantee you can find it. Yeah, Niv, this was a suggestion from you, and I am wondering when did you first see this film and why did you want to talk about it today?
That came out when I was still a kid, so I can't say that I was too young to watch it in real time. You know the story. I came on this podcast first to talk about some really awful films, and I'm on a quest of redemption to let people know about a few actually good films that they can watch,
and this is one of them. Of Antipopolal came out nineteen eighty six, when I was eight and Israel barely had a cinema industry, and to everybody's surprise, became a sort of an art house success and for many years was remembered as the one good Israeli film. In the nineteen eighties, Israel was basically making unwatchable films, and this movie was surprised because it was made by a film student like an unknown guy as his student film and later was turned into a feature length film. I'm happy
I got both of you guys to watch it. Will Have you seen it before? Did you watch it now?
This was the first I've seen it, and I never heard of it as a film. It was in a way riveting. It just had this mix of the farctcle and the realists and all that in the genre of the road sort of film where people are lost, and I had some of the cliches, but was just utterly original in so many ways. So it was really fascinating watch if on. The pacing and everything just great, and the characters, even the characters who have minimal dialogue, that
you still felt for. So it really worked as a film for me.
Yeah, it did for me as well. And I like what you said about the road movie aspect to it. It does have that feel to it. Characters drop off, new characters come in. We get to meet all of these different people from different prospects of their lives, and there's always that question of who am I meeting? Is it going to be an enemy or Is it going to be a friend or is it going to be an enemy that I can turn into a friend as we see in one part? Or is it just going
to be an obnoxious television crew? What's it going to be? So there's a lot of levels to this film. There's that it is coming out in nineteen eighty six, and if you're talking about the way that the Israeli film industry is in nineteen eighty six, But then it's also looking back at nineteen sixty eight when the Six Day War happened. Sixty seven it's okay, so looking back at sixty seven with that present gaze from eighty six, and of course now we're talking about it in twenty twenty four.
I don't know that much about the Six Day War. It was a conflict between Israel and Egypt, but why and obviously it was a quick one.
No how mash Officially the movie takes place in the Korean War, but for all intents and purposes, it's Vietnam. It's not really about the sixty seven war. Apparently, Offie Boukery had some memories personal experiences from the Lebanon War in eighty two, just four years before, and spilled all of his thoughts and things into the script when he went to film school, I guess after And it's such a huge, deep topic that I'd really rather not get
into it. That's when the occupation starts sixty seven, et cetera. So it's a huge, great, big issue. But I do want to bring it up in a different aspect, not of the war itself, but the fact that how should I put this? Okay? Is everything else with Israel Palestine is okay? Do I go back to sixty seven or go back to forty eight?
Blah blah blah. But let me say this.
The reason that I wanted to do this, besides the fact it was a good film that a few people remember, it's just I came upon an interesting article by this professor called Anton Shamas talking about the wider sort of topic of the portrayal of Arabs and Israeli films, which is focusing on anti popular of the film, and I might actually translate it properly, and now I sent you
Google translaate link translate the relevant fortunate properly. Because this is a film about Egyptians that all the main characters are Egyptian show soldiers being played by Palestinians by Israeli Palestinians. And a very interesting aspect of all this that's lost on my ears and on many people's ears, is the fact that they don't make any effort to sound Egyptian. They just talk like Palestinians. They speak in Arabic Palestinian and to Arab ears while listening watching this film, they
know it right away. It's because it's a neighboring dialect, but it's a different dialect. And that's one of the interesting things is that it's like a backdoor way to let actual Palestinians have center Stagian an Israeli film by not having them be Palestinian. Also all these other things, they're Palestinians playing Egyptians. The Salem Dao character ends up being known as the Jew when he says, I'm being called the Jew. I don't want to be a Jew. I want to die here as a Jew. And they
have encounters with Israelis. They have encounters with a un guy, except he's dead, but that's an encounter still. As you said, they haven't encounters with a foreign TV crew. In terms of yeah, it's less about a particular war and more because I think you guys will agree with me. It's like a humanistic film. It's a slightly surreal film. It's not all out surrealistic, but it's just like a series of weird encounters that happen that it's a little bit surreal.
Its powers in how universal, and it ends up being specific in the service of the universal.
Yeah, definitely plays with the universal, but I think ultimately it's not going to lay all the chips on the
universalist sort of bed, because it ends up. The way the film actually had develops is that it's fairly pessimistic in the prospects of universalism, even going from the scene where they're marching to the song of anti Popolo, the leftist anthem of the Italian labor movement, and that was the moment where you thought, oh, these soldiers, people who don't want to be in this war basically are coming together. There was some water shared, there's some bonding, there's some jokes.
There's obviously the key moment with the Merchant of Venice line and you think, oh, they're coming together. There's some sort of basis for universalism her and then the next morning the Israeli soldiers sneak away because these Egyptian soldiers are actually a burden for them to care for. It does give a nod back to universalism when the Israeli soldiers meet their fate going into a minefield, whereas if they would have kept the Egyptian soldiers with them, they
could have avoided that fate. The soldiers get killed because of the minefield. But I wanted to go back to the accent thing, which to me it was really interesting. I'm not fluent in Arabic, but I know enough Arabic to know when I hear an Egyptian accent versus a Palestinian accent, like the j sound, an Egyptian is more like a hard get, so you immediately can recognize that
it's not an Egyptian accent. But I had a friend of mine watch it who's a Pelsian's origin, and we got into a debate as to whether this was an intentional act by the director, because certainly any serious Palestinian actor would know how to at least fake an Egyptian accent, just from like access to Egyptian movies, which were very common at the time. So I felt like there was
a symbolic importance to this, and I think that. Yeah, I think I agree with Anton Schamas's take that this was a way to launder a Palestinian presence into the film through the camouflage disguise of egyptianists, because there was also seven years after Camp David, Right, so Egyptis are officially at peace. There's like tourism between the countries or the opening of relations. So it did seem like a way of sneaking it in. But my friend had no,
there's no way that it's intended. It was just like a production simplicity that these that's how the actors they had spoke, So we had even the people who could recognize that there was a difference in the accent read it very differently. But I saw every scene is having political metaphor.
By the way, I'll let you know something I don't know that when I was growing up, there was an Egyptian film every Friday evening on Israeli TV.
There's one TV channel.
There's a few hours of programming in Arabic every evening and every Friday an Egyptian film. Somebody told me once, a friend who was Mexican said that they were just like Mexican films. Egypt has a huge movie industry, and I think in the eighties it was like the third the biggest in the world after Hollywood and Bollywood. Very popular, huge singer, lots of famous film stars, and those Egyptian films were super popular in Israel TV. A lot of
people in Israel Arab, Arabic speakers, Arabs and Jews. It was very popular.
Yes, Egyptian of cinema runs the gammy. There's a lot of like slapstick comedy, but there's also very serious, almost classic cinematic films. I'm thinking of like the director of use of Shaheen for example. But yeah, there's a lot of silly nos and Egyptians, but I think that would not capture there's a serious literary tradition to my foods for example comes to mind, and a lot of books are made into films, also international films too, like Midak
midak Ali. I thinks this made into movie with Selma Hayek. But that's an interesting cross cultural exposure. And so my question for you and the it would be like how much do you read like this is like cultural differences that play out between the two groups of soldiers r actually versus like a politics of it because each of the three Israeli soldiers are very different in their dispositions. Danny comes off as more curious about this other and relates
to them more pop Pousner is obviously antagonistic. He starts off by shooting at them from the distance for his entertainment. It's just hard to watch, and like some of those clips I'm seeing of Israeli soldiers now and God's like
shooting at anything that moves. But then there's the third guy who gets mocked for having the Romanian accent, heirsh who Kladid tries to bond with over them both being actors, and then so it tries to entertain him, but then he takes it as an insult and puts his gun in Kadid's face and basically rejects the attempt at bonding and that maybe felt like he was being humiliated by Fadid, and so like, to what extent do you see these as like petical metaphor versus just like cultural clash or
cultural distance playing out?
First of all, I don't see the Israeli characters as significantly Israeli characters, like the characters for you to identify with the two main characters, the two protagonists, and that's in a way, that's the central subversive thing that he does. He wants to make an Israeli audience identify with Arab protagonists.
That's revolutionary. As an American, I was like, how many movies have I ever seen where there's Arab soldiers are the protagonists. I couldn't even think of one. And this is the context of like Rambo Delta Force. I mean, the terrorist genres in the US is at its height, so I see there's also subversive in the American context.
Look, it's just an outsider movie.
Again.
It's a movie made for no money by a film student. Everybody was acting pro ball and it was supposed to be a student film. And then Selim Daho I read an interview with him just saying how he got the script, and he said, there's something great here, I'll do it, you know what I mean. A lot of people gave of their time and everything. It's all filmed in sand dunes all around Israel, again for no money, and it's the kind of outlook that could only have happened from
an outsider voice. As it turns out, Offi Bouquet he died super young, he made this film in one other film.
Which I don't know.
I've found it pretty unwatchable and never found an audience. He died of cancer in two thousand and three.
It would have been cool to talk to him.
Today and ask him a bit about how he came up with this concept of this slightly surreal.
Yeah, and is it a true story? Because at the end there's this text card that's so detailed, so specific that I was like, wait, hold on a second, is this ripped from my headline?
I don't know about the titles at the end. They make no sense to me. My gut feeling is that the producer insisted that they attack it on That's my gut feeling. You don't have those titles if it's not based on a real story, But somehow they decided to do it.
Yeah, I'm stumped by that one.
What's interesting that the movie has a Italian name. So when you sent me of Anti Popolo, I was like, what I thought you said this was an Israeli film, Like, what is it called a anti Popolo for? This is absolutely bizarre named after, like you said, a Italian labor song. Okay, the opening, because there's an opening title card as well, if memory serves, that's in English, and then the end
title card is in English. And then for me, as a native English speaker, anytime they say anything in English, it just rings a bell for me. And I like the English becomes their universal language at one point, because we talked about the language barrier, and it's especially with that minefield, where had they been able to read the language, it would have been okay. And just the communication that happens throughout this entire film, so much of it is
I don't understand what you're saying. Can we try to come to some sort of understanding. When they speak English? I will say probably eighty ninety percent of the English that they speak is quoting Shakespeare as opposed to having a conversation. They still go back and forth in their own languages when they're trying to converse with each other.
So I find all of this stuff fascinating, and especially you think about there is a native English speaker, an actual person from England who comes in and then he doesn't understand what his translator is saying, and the translators fighting with the other guy, and the translators super angry, but will not show that face to the English person, which I was just like, wow, there's so many things happening with this.
I think that's one of the things uniting all the characters is hating the English guy.
And from what I heard.
It was a big laugh and applause sort of thing when they find out that he vomited on him. Everybody's very happy about that. And the British, especially in the region or basically all over the world.
Shirt.
Yes, everyone hates the media equally. Yeah, and his T shirt was like great, it's a great brom Like this is a little on the nose, I know, but he had the way he came in with a story that he wanted to tell about the war and looking for the visuals, Like it was just so clearly a sort of media critique. But I read the translator as also a government minder as well, because he was wearing fatigues.
Yeah, they were all ideas to Yeah, people like.
The media liais and sort of person and trying to provide the media with the image that they need, even going so far as to like connect to Egyptian soldiers or trying to at least get their visuals. The fact that there was a U when the officer who was killed and was Swedish. I was trying to understand that was there a UN peacekeeping force made up with the Swedish contingent and the Sinai during the war.
I mean, in all the conflicts, there's always a UN force and they're always from all sorts of European countries. And as you read it the titles at the beginning, it's like a UN imposed ceasefire. It's going to show you how much it changed in sixty years that people gave a shit about the UN and I tried to abide by some kind of international law.
The UN owes to so much money. We're going to get out of the UN. They have to pay themselves. Oh god, yeah, that used to be a big thing.
We should say that.
We're recording this minutes after Biden pulled out of the race, So the possibility.
Of big yeah, four more orange years and his last big press conference us all about the UN and supporting the UN, which is funny.
Yeah, there was also that league that he wasn't going to do it until afternight and yow who came to speak at Congress this week. I don't know if that was the true league or that wasn't genuine or at all that. Who knows the backstory there speak. Yeah, so speaking of backstories, we don't know much about the backstory of making other than this was a student film and any of you speculated it was personalized with the story of the Lebanon invasion.
We'll have more background.
When I talked to Zola, the editor, who, of course it was brought in to be the second editor after somebody did that first draft that the director wasn't happy with. He had a personal relationship with the director, and I think he can have a lot of insight about Who're going to have a talk with him pretty soon and pick his brain about all that stuff.
Yeah, I'm always curious, especially when it comes to it sounds like this was a student film first and then a feature film. How long was this student film?
No, it wasn't finished as a student film. You went out on a shoot as a student film and sat for a year editing it, and finally they just went and did some additional scenes. There's no shorter version that ever came out. But as a feature film, it's a good, like eighty six minute film.
Then just the level of acting that they have in here, I would say that if anything betrays it was a student film at all. It's probably the soundtrack, which just sounds a little cheap to me. It might have just been because of the time, because I'm sure if I go back and I listened to action films, especially in the nineteen sixties, the music always sounds a little cheesy.
But this or a oh first score, I was like, ah, this kind of reminds me of like when you're a young filmmaker and here's a guy who's I can do the music for you, and it just sounded a little teeny. I'm not trying to put the guy down or anything, but I was just like, this sounds like a student film, or this sounds like a lower budget.
Yeah, it was very dated, overly sympthesized.
Yeah, definitely.
But yeah. One thing that was also but I don't know if you noticed, is maybe because obviously it's not shot in four K, but the actors are never sweating. Did you guys notice this?
I just noticed how big something does. Hair keeps getting through them, it keeps standing up more and more. He is fucking fantastic. I really like him.
Did you ever remember seeing him in anything we played?
Do Defy?
It's Dad in the Crown now on Netflix.
Oh I didn't see that.
I mean neither, because I don't like movies about monarchs.
But so he specializes in playing Egyptians.
I suppose.
Yeah, No, I can't think of any other. He looks familiar, though.
It looks very familiar, and this was one of his earliest roles. I think he only had one credited role before this.
Yeah, there were other Polician actors that could have went with assuming they would have been willing. So it's interesting that they picked new actors and talent.
Yeah, that's one of the points that Anton Chamas makes about not giving the roles to very familiar Palestinian faces because it helps. Again, he probably couldn't have gotten the big names anyway, but it's again one of those perfect things that helps you identify with them, not having any kind of baggages people view in other roles.
Apparently he was in Faudo too.
I want to talk a little bit about the relationship between the soldiers too, because when we start off, I said a handful of soldiers and the intro, and that was only because it is two of them for the majority two people that were following, But we start off with four one of them get killed almost.
Immediately or dies immediately Isam I think his name is. And then there's their group leader. I don't know if he's their surgeon or what his position is, but he gets fragged by one of his own men justly so, I think, because they're in a very losing situation and this guy does not want to say let's go to the two as actually get away from this conflict.
He wasn't recognizing the ceasefire personally. But it also reminds me is it nineteen seventeen that the felt the World War One film where it's the war's going to end in an hour? What should we do? Keep fighting? So I had that same similar kind of pretense. But yeah, the fact that this commander wanted to try to ambush the Israeli soldiers that the last note was really interesting.
I'm wondering if you read that is these protagonists have to be likable, and the fact that they wouldn't attack Israeli soldiers when they had a moment of advantage, does that make them more relatable to an Israeli audience. That's the thing that might redeem them and get the audience say, okay, we can now follow this journey of these Egyptian soldiers because they refuse to kill these Israeli soldiers.
This movie wasn't like very popular, Like it's an art house hit that not a lot of people saw. So the audience for this film is cinophiles, is people who are going to come in with an open mind. And if we take a step back, look it's twenty twenty four, Like Israel is basically so completely pacistic now and so incredibly racist that anything Arabic is a non starter completely, anything that you look at from the nineteen eighties, it's a time capsule to a time where at least racism
wasn't mainstream. Seeing Arabs as subhuman wasn't mainstream. And yeah, it's like a little peak into a parallel universe by Israel. It's like the darkest time right now for Israel. I. Hope it starts getting better soon, but it's by far the darkest it's been.
Now that racism against Arabs might have been gone from Israel or hidden in Israel, but it was alive and well here in the United States, Well it.
Wasn't hidden in Israel.
It wasn't, but I'm just saying I was translating a documentary being made right now about hostages, the history of hostages, hostage taking between Israelis and Palestinians, and the terrible things that happened throughout the years. But if you see something from the nineteen eighties, there were actual negotiations. Like they hated each other, they were enemies, they fought each other,
they kidnapped each other and killed each other. But when they had hostages, they would do exchanges, which sounds like such a simple thing. Yes, there's a hostage, you do in exchange. You have some of their prisoners in your prison, and you do in exchange. That's what you think that humanity does. But apparently you can get so twisted in dark and evil that you won't talk to them if your whole thing is based on them not being human.
Even though that was a dark time in itself, at least they communicated through emissaries, They had negotiations, and in this dark timeline when we're on even talking to the other side is like science fiction. So it's hard for me to put myself in the nineteen eighties and how an audience react to it and the film.
I like, whethery're like we could be POW's we can't get treated properly, you know, with an old school motion. And then the command when they call them the commander, what do we do about these drunk conscriptions? Soldiers we found? He says they're drunk. Shoot them, And it's I thought at this point, obviously the film can't end this way. But it was like they just took it like as a grain of s all, like they didn't think it as a literal command. So that's the kind of realist
portrayal of these situations. The soldiers were just standing around or occupying a position because they're supposed to and they're It does harken back to this era of different humanity to conflict.
Yeah, in a realistic sort of way. Because another thing it does is it doesn't go far in this other touchy feely direction of oh, we're all human, let's drink a cup of whiskey together and I'll be friends. It doesn't do that. And as you said, there's Reddy guy when Selin dau goes a little bit too far with this cute routine and he pulls a gun on him.
He's not having it.
Every single scene in this movie really keeps you on your toes. Nothing ever happens the way you think it might happen.
Yeah. The other fascinating scene is when they end up at that kind of Egyptian base and the three soldiers pull up and one of them goes to defecate in the middle of the trailer and uses the newspaper, and they have the whole argument about why he used such a historically important newspaper because it had the headline about them winning the war, and then there was all this like the big poster of not them.
By the way, I looked at the because the subtitle only said about the war ending, but actually it also says about all Jerusalem was liberated, the Sina Peninsula was conquered, and Robbin is mentioned there as the commander in chief of the Israeli Army. So yeah, a lot of today that is sixty seven Today's that the occupation is starting.
But you can see the statement on it. This is all bullshit, as we're going to use the toilet paper. And then the way that the soldiers decide to commemorate their victory of this historical moment is just like posing while shooting the gun. And I think that's a statement on the militarism, the militaristic culture. But what I don't know, if you're down to talk about this, you need one
other reading. You've got into the sort of culture of asking questions and Jewishness, and it makes me think about Zionist masculinity and the sort of remaking of the Jewish warrior. I thought that was an interesting analysis, and one of the readings that we shared.
I'm the last person to ask, as a person who didn't serve in the idea and always thought.
It was all bullshit.
Anyway, this is background that I need to give when we talked about The Big Dig, because that's also a movie, an Israeli movie that really pokes fun at all the Zionist propaganda that you're inundated with. And again, this movie doesn't like very actively except for that thing you said with a newspaper and bits and pieces. Growing up in Israel is growing up with this incessant much brainwashing, but this incessant ideology of guess.
It makes me sick to even try to dredge it up.
But yeah, the new jew and then this is our country and we'll build it and blah blah blah. And this movie is less interested in satirizing it as it is just about not giving two shits about it, just like it didn't become very touchy feely in a humanistic way. One of the advantages of a movie with a tiny crew and one writer director who does what he wants.
They don't give you all the answers.
You can take it in many different discussions from the basis of this film.
Because related to what I was saying, I also thought of when Ahadad says I'm the Jew, I get called the Jew. It made me think of what Edward Sayid said, is that they he's the last Jew, and it's like a statement of being cosmopolitan and diaspora, being dispossessed, not having a homeland versus the perspective an outlook of people who have a state or have a place and the things that they can take for grants is including power military power to solidify and compatize that kind of rule.
So this, I think came out a few years after Edward Sayida even said that, but it made me think about those role reversals. Sinai is this ancient place and Jewish history of obviously some theological importance, and now we're watching the film in the setting, it's in Israel's hands, and the Egyptians played by the Palestinians are now the wandering people, wandering in the desert and experiencing exile, and so I thought that role in version.
It's a little bit of the myth of Jewish people being expelled from Egypt and doing the exact same pilgrimage in the other direction. They're trying to go back to Egypt. And yeah, make it as far as the water in the Bible, Moses makes it is far enough that you can see the land of Israel. And he dies there on the mountain, so it's flipped on its head in that way.
Yes, I fail it can see Egypt when he dies, or what suddenly became the edge of Egypt, and then the fact that I had to rewind to watch it again. But at the end, when he shot on both sides, the Egyptians shoot him as well. And that's why I struggled with is this like an affirmation of sort of universals. There's a pessimistic about the prospects of universal but when I see the soldiers shooting him on both sides, just have a recognition about being these sort of like pawns of power.
Yeah, I also have actually the answer for that. I heard this being said in interviews that historically, apparently it was historically correct that Egyptian soldiers in that situation were seen as deserters and they were instructed to shoot them
if they tried to come back. Actually, a very interesting detail I heard from an interview is that again from the Salem Dao interview and arts that I read, he says that originally in the script on How It Comes Back, he yelled out to the soldiers, don't shoot, I'm an Egyptian. And he says that he convinced Alfi Buka to change
it and to not include that in the film. And later Salim tells a beautiful story of attending a screening in hearing this very intense scene at the end when he reaches the Suez Canal and he heard one woman shout out, go you can do it, and he was impressed by how a Jewish woman watching this is identifying with this character to such a degree, and that if he had said I'm an Egyptian, don't shoot, it would have been a completely different effect. It would have othered
him to the viewer. And Salim Dao says that he told him when he objected to saying it, he told him, but that's historically accurate, and he said, I don't give a shit if historically accurate, but dramatically it's bad. Let's not do it, and you convinced them not to do it.
You mentioned this whole idea of the Israeli super soldier type of character, and I'm curious where this is coming from. Is that a campaign to say Israel is strong? Because I know, like y'all got Kraft Maga, you know, when I see movies and there's an Israeli soldier or former Israeli soldier like Ziva David n Cis or the woman that gets her hand cut off, I think it is in World War Z, it's always, oh yeah, it Israeli super tough and super soldiers.
By the way, there was supposed to be a Sabra, the Israeli superhero entering them, see you, and they're just changing it now because this will becomes so toxic that apparently they're still doing it. She was supposed to have a star of David on her chest and everything, and so that's not going to be happening.
Mike, you forgot. You don't mess with The Zohan starring Adam Seldler.
Oh yeah, he can even do all those flips and craziness.
That historically accurate film. Yeah, has there ever been a more worthy representation of the dispossession of the Palestinian people than Rob Schneider crying about his dead goat?
That you have seen that movie makes me very impressed. I never tuned in for that one.
I saw The Zohan in the movie theater in Tel Aviv, and when the movie starts, there's a flyby of the tel Aviv coastline of the exact theater I was sitting in as part of the skyline.
Yeah, that's pretty biglorre.
Oh lord, yeah, yeah, but that seems stark with you, at least no a lot of it. Again, it was very bizarre as an Israeli to see that very specific, very weird representation.
Oh lord.
We talk about Salim Daub being called the Jew, and that's the whole reference I was making to Shakespeare earlier, is that he does the Shylock speech twice pretty much all the way through. But then it's interesting later on or in the middle of the film. I think it is when they are by that dead peacekeeper, and to me, the dead peacekeepers. Look at how effective the peacekeepers are. They're dead. And there's the one guy who's left in
the carries in the back seat. So I think there are other peacekeepers that got away or you know, fucked off somewhere, but this guy just sitting in the car roasting basically. And though like you said, we don't see a lot of sweat on these on anybody. But you know, that's when daw does the whole to be or not to be speech as well, So we've got a little
bit of to be or not to be. But it's interesting that of all the things to reference, says Shakespeare and other Englishman, but then also the idea of Shylock, who's obviously very distasteful character. Now when you look to see the way that Jews were portrayed in these plays, or barely portrayed, he's a pretty not nice character. He's no Fagin or something. But it could be portrayed a little bit better.
By the way.
I have to correct you on one point because he said all the way through, and interestingly it's not all the way through. He says, if you particular us, do we not laugh? If you poison us?
Do we not die?
This is the part that is not said. And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
Now, that's sorry. He doesn't say that part in front of the Israeli soldiers. He says that in front of his own.
Men, and the director didn't want the character to say in this context stop short of the revenge part, just the human stuff. I just wanted to point out one thing, which is this ironic use of this IDF march which plays on the soundtrack when they turn on the radio when they get the jeep going, and of course it's already ironic when they drive the jeep. Then the jeep gets stuck in the sand, and it still keeps playing.
It's actually the same march that plays at the end of the big dig of the Bloodmouth Canal, where what's this big ridiculous victory at the end where they unveil the canal that by mistake was and the orchestra plays the same two and so it's actually quite lovely. Before they do the Bandiera Rossa song, there's this other very ironic one as well with this IDF march.
Yes, sand is really begin to me in this movie more than even the soldiers sometimes just to see when they're trying to bury is and just digging, digging, digging in. They're not getting anywhere doing this, constantly swarting them. I found it interesting that they bury themselves in it when they're trying to go to sleep, because they'll keep them warm. I never knew that that was fascinating to me.
But yeah, because the desert is super hot in the day and super cold in the night. So in the night, because there's no trees, there's no anything to stop the cold.
So at night, all of a sudden, you do want to be warm.
Yeah, And then yeah, that jeep getting stuck in there. It's I don't know how they got stuck in there, but they sure do get stuck pretty darn good. It's interesting that they have them drinking, which I think is probably against their religion, drinking this booze.
That's the reason they're drinking for the first time in their lives, because the non Muslim would have had a drink by now.
And then that they find that parasol and it makes them look a little ridiculous, but it's hilarious to see. It's a great visual, But I really think it helps undermine those characters as being badass soldiers walking around with this parasol in the desert.
Yeah, apparently he got that idea from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
All Right, We're going to take a break and play an interview that you and Neve did with Vante Popolo's editor, Zoharsella, and we'll be back with that right after these brief messages.
Get ready to dive deep into the life, career, and unforgettable moments of the one and only Chevy Chase. Join us on an exciting journey through the illustrious career of this comedy icon as we explore his groundbreaking roles, behind the scenes stories, and timeless contributions to the world of entertainment.
Each episode of the Chasing chevy Chase Podcast brings you expert analysis and nostalgic reflections on chevy Chase's most iconic characters in classic films like National Lampoon's Vacation, Caddy Shack, and Fletch. Whether you're a diehard Chevy Chase aficionado or simply curious about the man behind the laughter, Chasing chevy Chase is your go to podcast for all things Chevy Chase. Tune in and join the conversation as we celebrate the
life and legacy of a true Hollywood legend. Don't miss out. Subscribe now to Chasing Chevy Chain wherever you get your podcasts, and let the adventure begin.
Welcome zol Sela to the Projection Booth podcast. So we're talking in days of lots of action. Tel Aviva is under bombardment.
So there was just one missile so far, nothing maj well here, yeah, it's a bigness.
Let's see if we can, on a day like today go back a little bit to nineteen eighty eight and talk about this film of Anti Popolo that you are the editor for. If that's entirely possible, a time where in Israeli public discourse you could show the point of view of an Arab god forbid a different time.
In eighty six it was there the same you made a film that talking about the enemies, showed them like a human being. It was a big shock.
And if you book, he started this project, as we said, as his final project for his film studies in Televiv University. And the first cut was shorter than the one we see today.
The first cut was like forty six minutes of fifty six minutes. I think. I had a call from the producer and he asked me if I can help this guy. The young guy is older than I am, but we were really young. I was twenty five, I think, and I was twenty eight or twenty nine. I worked with the producer Mikashagriv before. He asked me to look at that and tell him what I think about it, and if we can make it as a feature instead of
a short film and add some new scene. And I look at the cart and I knew Luffee and I liked Traffi, and they say, yes, let's do it. And they shot all the night scenes.
So did you use any of the original cut that was done by another editor or did you start from scratch?
No, I start from scratch. I always do it. I usually do it when I am second editor. I made like twelve features as a second editor, and I always would it again, and I don't do it like the assistant make it. It was film. It was sixteen millimeter sixteen plus millimeter, so she put it in the reel again and I started from scratch. We worked in them a gun. It was fun.
You mentioned that the original screenplay was pretty basic and basically more like a declaration of intent than a real shooting script. Can you tell us something about that.
The original script was between twenty four to twenty seven pages, and they took their time at the set and a lot of it because the dialogue, because Raffi is not speaking Arabic, so do I. The actors are selling down in fun or a sudden it's the name of the actor. I don't remember. It's the name of the character. And I don't remember now the name of the actor. And they do a lot of work the dialogue point of view.
It was a short film. It was supposed to be a short film, and the script was according to that, there's a in the atmosphere. Short became a bit long, so we all decide to make it.
And you said that the later scenes that were filmed were only the night scenes or other scenes as well.
If I remember correctly, it was just the night scenes, the rabbit scene, and then they took next to the fire there. I think that was the only scenes that the issues, if I remember correctly.
You do a lot of ironic use of music in the film, for instance, the march that's the IDF March and also the pop music coming in from radio Monte Carlo over the radio. Did you try different songs or did the director choose the music he wanted to hear in the film.
As far as I remember, after you choose this music from the beginning.
The song itself of Anti Popolo Bandera Rosa, the Italian Communist anthem. Was the film called anti popolo from the beginning or is the late Yes.
This thing called avanti pop from the beginning. Raffi was in the shamers a year youth movement. I was in that two, so we knew the song. We used to to sing it the melody. We used to sing it in the Hebrew word in a way and the Italian words. We knew the song, and yeah, it was when I got the cart it was there.
Maybe well, I never even knew that it existed with Hebrew lyrics. Now I have to go find it and we.
It's I don't think it really exists. I think it's we used to to put words for it andat in camping, and we used to improvise about this boy. But we but we used to do all this nonsense about it. I don't think that maybe there are EBow lyrics. But we used to like, we used to like like just bullshit around it.
As origins in a folk song. So it makes sense people, that's what you do. You make up the lyrics. It's a folk song.
Yeah, it was a big thing in Italy, in the freshiest Italy. I think it wasn't like it was Mussolini, but it was.
It's a song about communism, it's about the red.
Yeah, yes, yeah, yes, yes.
So tell us a little bit about Affie book. He died young, only made two feature films.
He made only two feature films, but he made another feature for TV I think ninety two minutes that I had the honor to edit too. Yeah, it was really all. He was sick when I knew he was sick. He wasn't sick. He was sick before he had cancer when he was a student, and he made it. He didn't die that young, but it was always there.
And what kind of guy was you? What was it like to work with them?
Raffi was a fun god. He didn't usually smile a lot, but when he was smiling, it was like amazing happening. And the thing with Raffi that from really as he was really young, that when he has a theater in kiyot Gat where he was born and lived, so he knew everything about films. He knew everything about the end of the film. He like understand the audience in a way,
and you think he knew the orients anyway. And Popolo was like in a way a tribute to the good, the bad, and the ugly, because Ruffy really loved his film as a young guy and used to put it in their family theater once in the year. And the thing with the umbrella is like really a tribute to the good, the bed, and the ugly. So he knew about film, especially producing and distribute. And he was a
smart guy. And he was a guy that deal with life really early, being sick and all this stuff, and he like he has something to say and he choose to do it with humor in Anti Popolo, and he liked to shock people. That's a Anti Popolo was a big shock and Israel that time because as I said, it showed the enemy, the two Egyptian soldiers as a human beings. And when you say I am a Jew
from Shylock, it was a big shock. Take a part of the Jew guy and put it to the Egyptian guy and it was a shock and it was a fun and that's what I think make up a Palti popolo big as he is, because you got all this humor and people really laugh in the movie, really laugh and really cry. And this is amazing. I mean, like people sit in the theater and laugh like hell and cry.
And also even with an international audience as we know, at one in the world in Locarno.
Can yes, I've been in screaming it wins in the Festival of in French what it's called, Oh I forget it in the north of French where the Frusaders went to it to Israel in those days. And that gave you, Raffy the idea to make the second big feature of the big flow error. Yeah it was a flow because it didn't have even one joke. Nothing was fun there. It was so serious. It wasn't but it was I think what we got the idea there and people really
like it in French and Italy and Straits. It was a big success, not big as a money thing, but people really like it and create one and it still worked today. That's what really great about the film.
The film could easily have been much more surrealistic, but it wasn't a book, and I guess you made a choice to leave it just realistic enough that you can basically believe it as a straight telling of wartime. But just between the lines. The fourth wall is not broken. The fourth wall is still there, but you get that is slightly magical and also not a crowd pleaser. It also could have been a crowd pleaser and it's not. It always surprises the viewer.
Yes, and it was like one of the things that inspired Rafi to do all these things, because the Egyptian army that wore on Six Day War, they should the Egyptian soldier that ran away from the Yes, so that in the end when you see those guys died, the main actor has been shot from both sides. We have a problem in the Egyptian side because it was shut not in focus, and so I could not edit as I wanted. I used not many shots as I could use if I have shots that was really in focus
and the shot not feeling focus. But it's okay. A lot of people think what's happening here because they think just Israeli killed him because it's fairly shut him from the back and the Egyptian shuting from his face stomach, so you can show it by you can show it the way he'd been shot. But it's hard to understand that there's the Egyptian killed him and Israel because you think the Egyptian shot and the guns against israelis.
I think in the final film it's clear to see that he's shot from both sides.
That's good because not always it's been understand like that down as a story.
He says that in the original script, his character was supposed to yell out to the Egyptians, don't shoot me, I'm an Arab. Selimda says that he insisted on the change to not have that in the film, that it would change everything and make it too literal and also maybe make him not sympathetic for Jewish audience.
First time I hear it, but it makes sense.
Okay, fair enough. There's a tiny thing I have to ask you about. I don't know if at the beginning the title says TTG Productions. I have an idea what TTG means, but I wanted to ask you.
If I remember correctly, it's kiss my tool.
That's what I thought. Yes, I think, yeah, because I know the old joke that TTG stands fortisic cheftin. That's a joke just for Ibro and Eidish speakers. TTG Productions.
Yes, it's a joke between and all of us. But it was like an inside joke.
Will be the first person to get that joke outside of you. Yes, I don't think it's beautiful, but it's like the inside jokes. It's like when we made the second big film. I was really not pleased. I was told Raffi, this is not gonna work, it's not a good film. Where to work on it, and blah blah blah.
And Raffi as a joke put on my name, put M like not Joe Seller m Siler because he said, you think it's not gonna work. But I give you the m. It's my original name, Zoe Tiao Seila, but I never use it. And I told Raffy once that's my name in English, they say the second name. In bre usually you don't have, so Raffy put my second name inside the credits. So like in a joke, you like those in a joke as any in the jokes in the film that you have to watch with me.
So I can tell you about Rev. R. Raffy really had this thing with humor. Father was some Syria and his mother was from Romania. So we have this thing between Arabi Reidish Israeli Jewish. Yeah, this mikes with him.
When I first reached out to you for the interview, the first thing you wanted to know is, I just want to know that this podcast has nothing to do with the right wing media, which I write away in you I liked you and excellent, And of course it doesn't. You're sitting up in Batiam in Israel, where the right wing has gone completely in control. She's I don't know.
You think we can say something not depressing about the changes in Israel since the nineteen eighties and you see change coming soon or not so much.
There's a lot of change, but Nott will change. We were not a real democratic country already then in eighty six and now it's all came out. And I always ask if it's not connect to the fascist parties in Israel or right wings, if you want to call it that way. But it's all makes you like the Bigger producer and these Velly Cinema. Mister dri is one of the friends of mister big Crime minister, so it's people work with him, but people don't work with Karen Shamon. I don't see the difference.
One is a film fund that only supports cenema created in the occupied territories by people who live there.
Yeah, but not for the Arabs or the jew No.
Of course, the Jews only only on fun so we.
Don't work with them. Okay. I did work with them before. I did a film called The Kraft to be guy there a rabbi Na. He's a really liberal guy, but he's like living in Lala Land, and we talked really about it. But I really don't see a different working with Motor Sivalgi and that's my point of view. Yeah, it's really bad time. It's really good time for everyone, and I hope we can make it.
Me too, my friend me too. Of course I left you so far staid. Everybody's figuring out how to continue.
Everybody think how to get the fuck out of.
Him unless you're Indaza and you can't even go visit your relatives.
If you're as ell or is really har or you got the money and you don't have little kids. It's a big it's a big thing now and it didn't start now I'm in the street for more than thirty five years before even they killed Robin, before bib was the big chief of killing Rabbi Rabin.
In protesting against protesting.
I'm not just protesting as a lem. I'm taking pictures and filming all of it for almost thirty five years. I have lots of tons of stuff, and it's never stopped. I got the beginning, I got a lot of middle and I got no end for it. So I don't I never go to edit, and I always wanted to end. I want happy end. And then so in a way, nothing changed since Rubbing died. And I used to put protest against Robbin for many years because Rabbin was not a good guy, and then they killed Rubbing and it's
it's it's a mess from there. But even we were never really a democratic country. It's not like it started now.
He was hoping for some kind of good ending and then then to the occupation, some justice for Palestine and as well, yeah, in our lifetime later.
In Australia and in Russia, and so everybody, we're talking to you, hey, nice talking to you too, And I help people gonna see a anti popolo and enjoyed life.
Kadi Mahamer Love, and it's Kadi mahas Summer, Kadi Mahasom Lovodo, It's an Hasa Kavemaisma, Kadi masomehas Kadi Masoma.
All right, we're back and we were talking about avanti Popolo And obviously you guys probably know way more about this than I do. Were there any films that were like this in the mid eighties? Is this just a singular thing or were there other films coming out around this time or around the world that are similar to Anti Popolo?
Nothing comes to mind, but many wrote about it in relationship to They called the tour with the Egyptian band that was touring and the band's visit which has also been remade in the theater, and it's this Egyptian police orchestra has lined up to do some shows in Israel. And it's not an answer to the film in any kind of way. I don't think it's in conversation with the film, but there's certain similarities in this sort of cultural disconnect that happens. But maybe there was more political
metaphor there than I remember seeing. It didn't strike me as a political film, as a anti popolois. But the idea of this Egyptian is really sort of encounter and being lost and having this sort of Egyptian or superficially Egyptian protagonists. The similarities that really struck me.
A very personal association for me is just I don't
know even why, because they's a very different movie. But Arizona Dream America Sturitza's movie just in this sense of, without being too sentimental, having some people who are super different and have conflict share like a dinner together kind of thing that if I go to that mood, We've had those moments in life of having a dinner that you know is a very special one with people who are completely different we'll never see again, but everything works
and everybody manages to be super friendly just for one moment. So if I think of that mood, I think Arizona Dream. It's just a movie that's just a little, just a tiny little miracle that there's everything for some reason really worked. It's such a weird notion that this even this thing even works as a movie, and it really does.
Yeah, there's something about the landscape being the desert. Each sort of event that happens becomes such a memorable scene because it's different than the desert landscape that is always there in the background, and so I highly recommend people watch it. But just there's a beauty to each thing that happens, even if it's not always clear what the meaning is.
How easy or difficult is it for people to watch this movie? I know that I found it in some unusual places, let's put it, maybe not legal places. But is it out there on DVD or Blu ray?
I'm sure it's available online legally at the Israeli Film Archive. I think it is, and maybe you can share a link. It's like a paywall for the pay per view kind of thing. I'll send you a link. I think it's worldwide, and I think it has English subtitles, and it's probably a couple of bucks.
To watch it. There is a Hebrew version I saw on Vimeo. It's googleable, but that's just for a particular audience. So obviously or Arabic speakers will get You won't to be able to understand the Hebrew, possibly unless you're unpunched a mass but you yes, So there are ways of watching it without paying. On the Israeli orcud. Yeah, I really enjoyed it, and I want to thank you for bringing it to my attention, and I'm glad you enjoy the opportunity to see it. I would take further recommendations
from you all one too. One other film that came to mind a little bit was Divine Intervention, Elias Layman's film. Different historical setting, different topic, but playing with political metaphor through surrealist representations. It has less of a clear plot. Also, there's longtipobolos, but it's certain things brought that to mind as I was watching this.
Yeah, I think we did something a bit extreme and subversive by even talking about Israel in twenty twenty four at all, excepts to denounce it completely. I've been Israeli all my life and I've left and we're starting a new new life in Spain now. The people we reached out to didn't want to do it, and they didn't say why, But it wouldn't be completely crazy to assume that just because it's so toxic to do anything that
has a relation to is world right now. So even yeah, just to remember about a particular movie that was made for no money by one guy basically and his crew, and it doesn't have big forces behind it. It's not propaganda, it's not something that a committee sat and decided what's going to be in it. It's just a little piece of art that we can enjoy.
And sadly, you couldn't make that kind of film today, not by a long shot.
Yeah, but it works.
It somehow works like it's not a time capsule.
It's a movie that works and keeps working, and I think, yeah, the shittier and crazier real life becomes, it'll only work more, probably, m I want.
To thank both of you guys for coming on here and talking about this. So you need other than moving to Spain. What's been up with you, sir?
Raising my daughter in hopefully a saner environment, and translating mostly for Netflix. So if you watch with hebrew'suptitles on Netflix, maybe you'll see my name there.
And well, what about you, what are you up to these days? I'm wrapping up a documentary that you might be interested in. Also, when he said it's very hard to talk about anything related to Israel, my documentary relates and we are seeing on the industry side some reluctance to go there. But the film is about Alex Hawda, who was a Palestinian American activist who has killed in
Orange County, California in nineteen eighty five. So it looks like it's true crime genre, but really it's also a political story, and we follow an Israeli Canadian freelance journalist who's trying to uncover what happened with the suspects, why were they never caught And essentially it's a story about the denial of justice and the role of US sort of Israeli relations and setting back the criminal justice system
of the US. And it's gonna be the fortieth anniversary next year of the assassination, so we're hoping to have it in circulation and be watchable by then. The title right now is who Killed Alex Valade will probably change that.
Do you have a site or is there a good place for people to cape up with the film and with you.
We have some social media accounts if you look up who Killed Alex Sawada you could follow those on where I think we have Facebook and Instagram. We don't have a website yet though, unfortunately we thought we were done on October sixth. Yeah, we actually showed it to the family of Alex and they loved it and thought it was powerful. And then October seventh, I like, let's wait and see what happens with the industry because of the politics.
And yeah, it didn't really change a story fundamentally, other than one of the suspects was involved in trying to deny humanitarian aid to Gaza, was an organizer in that of the suspects, and Alex Murder Zupen Josef Big in the Temple rebuilding, the Temple movement, which is a whole other potcast, but he's still politically pertinent. And that's part of the power of the story is that it's about impunity and what impunity can bring about.
Yeah, we got to protect Israel because otherwise the apocalypse won't happen in those right wing conservatives won't have anything to look forward to.
Absolutely, if it's a zombie apocalypse, you have to have israelis Oh you need that tenth man there to build them that wall.
Yeah, you know where I was.
On October sixth I went to London for a week for the London Film.
Festival, and then I just didn't go back.
You don't have any of your stuff that you had at your house.
No, I got rid of I went. At some point I went back for a week and stashed.
Wow, whatever, and yeah, we're starting in your life.
We were gonna leave.
We were planning, like a vague general plan to maybe leave. But it was just like so insane how it happened that we just took it as a sign and moved on.
It's a big move to make, but it sounds like the right thing for you.
But there's a lesson there.
Go to film festivals.
I was at a film festival when nine to eleven happened, and then he couldn't get it back home. I luckily I drove that year, which film was Toronto, across the border. I even brought a couple of people from Baltimore with me because they were stuck. They couldn't get back any place. I was smuggling Baltimorean's across the border.
At Parks Well write about all the smuggling was a human trafficker.
Yeah, our borders are just open here, and that's really one of the problems.
You gotta do a caveat there. People don't see her smile when.
You say that.
I know they probably they think that I'm like close the mourners. Yeah, hopefully if they've listened to this show, before they know, and and if they don't, they'll just write horrible comments about me in the on iTunes.
I look forward to it. We'll balance them all Wis and pauls those comments. Thanks.
Thank you so much guys for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening. If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some of the other shows that I work on. They are all available at weirdinglymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com. Slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the projection Booth take over the world.
At Alascosasa trio answer.
Funny, Your answer A bounty up law Malo's car sa funny your outside trim.
Right, you work close, flicking the breezes, the scarlet banner, the scarlet banner. All right, you work close, flicking the breezes, the scarlet banner triumphantly.
Steal rising workers, You check them, dravery, We're vanish under the scarlet banner.
Come rally around it.
Go show your bravery.
The scarlet banner triumphantly.
Tail Alara Coosa Bundy, your Alsa Bundy, your Alsa.
About the Buffolo Alaracasa. Funny your Rossa Trail Paso records start.
Bunn here outside ban here outside by uplo.
I don't know.
Let's have the side.
Bunn here outside the tail, but the bannon tail
Sh