Faces of Israel

Michael Roemer: Faces of Israel (US 1966).

US 1966. D: Michael Roemer. F.: Robert M. Young. M.: Michael Roemer, Peter Vollstadt, Sara Miller. DCP. Bn. 27 min

    Digital video from Library of Congress

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2023: Recovered and Restored

    Viewed at Cinema Lumiere - Sala Scorsese, 27 June 2023

Haden Guest (Bologna catalog 2023): " Roemer’s rarely screened portrait of Israel just before the Six-Day War is a poetic essay film that counts among his most politically charged works – a charge made immediately clear by the haunting, damning image that opens the film: the corpse of a Holocaust victim. Faces of Israel powerfully echoes the lyrical yet understated intellectual montage best refined by Chris Marker with its observational exploration of everyday life and labor in Israel. Eschewing the kind of voice-over dialogue forced upon Cortile Cascino, Roemer instead allows his footage to create spaces for empathy and understanding that transcends language, inviting the viewer into intimate familial and sacred moments including, most powerfully, the welcoming of new arrivals to Israel. Throughout these scenes in Faces of Israel, whole gestures, emotion and setting are allowed to say more than words ever could. Roemer shot his footage in 1966 while in Israel to research  a never realized film about Martin Buber. An earlier version of this film was screened in 1966 on PBS, but that is not the same, far superior film that will be screened here. " Haden Guest

AA: From the corpse of the Holocaust victim we cut to screaming jets and further footage of military might: armoured trains, military parades and combat helicopters. Hasidim crowd on the square, sacred meals are prepared, children are having a music lesson, and the teacher is one-armed. The might of the chorus singing is impressive. We witness the everyday and the holiday. A jeep traverses the desert, with views to vineyards and sheep farms. We find ourselves on Kinneret Farm. Muslims are at prayer, children are bathed, a donkey carries a huge load of grain, women are engaged in gun drill exercises, at a cabaret, "La cumparsita" is being played.

Calm before the storm of the Six Day War.