This film review of Hula and Natan directed by Robby Elmaliah, is a film “not to be missed” according to Trish Thalman. This film will be shown today Monday 11 April 2011 at the Capitole 2 – 18:00
Hula and Natan
We live just to die”, complains the growling, morose, kind and dissipated Hula, after a ‘Colour Red’ alert is sounded that warns of incoming Qassam Rockets. The, mostly, homemade Hamas rockets are being launched from Gaza and arrive in Sderot, Israel, which is close to the Gaza/Israel border. Hula then jokes “they are giving me back all the metal I sold to them”.
Hula and his brother Natan have a car repair ‘shop’ (shop is certainly a loose term) in Sderot. It is in fact, a scruffy, overgrown dusty field with junked out cars spread about like metal toys, random piles of iron, metal, old car batteries – just about everything, in no particular order. The ‘office’ is an ancient, grimy caravan where business conversations and foul-language, spiteful arguments go on-and-on between the two men. Black, oily hands from years of working on cars, have turned the doors, walls, everything, into a colour of greasy grey mixed with tobacco smoke yellow.
It’s a love-hate relationship between the two brothers and they give as good as they get. In fact, it’s the sensitive, loving friendship between them that keeps the business ‘going’. They have been at their ‘car repair shop’ for nearly 30 years and it is their ‘home’. They are well known, loved and despised at the same time. There is an animal family at ‘the shop’ of beloved cats, dogs, a donkey, roosters and chickens who are healthy and extremely well cared for. Even the animals look up to the sky when the ‘color red’ alerts are announced.
Both men have had unhappy marriages. Hula has been divorced for 13 years, and laments, “ but I have never left my wife”. Some of his happier moments are when he is with his wife’s son, Aaron, from a relationship she had after the divorce.
Natan is separated from his wife and two children. His wife harasses him endlessly on the phone about needing money. He remains separated and cannot come to grips with getting a divorce. This is cause for many arguments between the two brothers, berating each other about the fact that they have had no joy in their lives or love. They do have a long list of prostitutes names whom they often visit.
An eviction notice arrives – again!
An eviction notice arrives – again! This is an on-going process in their lives. The huge crane and trucks arrive to take away all the old cars that are sitting around in the dirt and weeds. In principle, the land is to be cleared and their ‘car repair shop’ is to cease business. By law, their caravan and other piles of ‘who-knows-what’ is not subject to the eviction notice. Cars eventually return and the ‘repair shop’ remains in business.
For the Independence Day celebration, the two brothers visit a barber together and get their scruffy hair cut and long, unkempt beards shaved off. Pleased with their images, they smile at themselves and each other. They are ready for a day of celebration together and return to the, currently, empty ‘car repair shop’ caravan and animals.
This truly tragicomic story, is joyful and spirited, in spite of their situation with their business, and tense situations with Hamas in-coming fire. They get on with their lives employing a mixture of sullenness, despair, hope, joy, humour and genuine brotherly love for each other. What all religions ask of us.
The young filmmaker Robby Elmaliah has created a film about real life provided by two indomitable spirits. For a few minutes, we focus on people and not the dangerous political situation that exists in the Southern part of Israel. This is a film not to be missed.
tamar says
Great movie that combines so many aspects of life as we all know them through the story of the two lovely brothers. The truth sometimes comes from the margins of life.