L. KENT WOLGAMOTT / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, July 21, 2005 7:00 pm
"Nina's Tragedies" is one of those movies that you're either going to love or absolutely hate. Put me in the former category.
Despite its title indicates, "Nina's Tragedies" is a coming-of-age story. But it's like no other coming-of-age story I've seen. The boy at the center of the story, 14-year-old Nadav, is a Peeping Tom, a sex-obsessed kid who spends his time looking through windows, then writing everything he sees and knows down in a journal.
But we don't know that when the film opens with a funeral of Nadav's estranged, very religious father. We also don't know dad's attributes when the burial service begins. All those details are spun out after the movie flashes back to a few days earlier, father Amnon's last day of life.
Called to Nadav's school, Amnon (Shmil Ben-Ari) is handed his diary, which has somehow fallen into the hands of a school counselor. From its pages, we learn of Nadav's masturbatory obsession with his aunt Nina the woman who gives the movie its title.
As Amnon reads, the story spins out in bits and pieces, a series of episodes recorded and narrated by Nadav (Aviv Elkabets).
From those episodes, we learn of the family history. His mother, Alona (Anat Waxman), is a high-strung, successful, fashion designer whose failed experiments are shown before she hits on success and runs off. There are a succession of pairs of shoes outside her bedroom, with plenty of moaning coming from inside.
Nadav's heart is broken when Nina (Ayelet July Zurer) marries Haimon (Yoram Hattav), who he doesn't like. But he's thrilled when, after Haimon is killed in a terrorist attack, he is asked to move in with Nina. After a period of mourning, Nina becomes involved with a photographer named Avinoam (Alon Aboutboul), the man who informed her of Haimon's death.
Nadav is once again crushed and has no one to turn to because his grown-up friend and fellow peeper Menahem (Dov Navon) has found love with Russian immigrant Galina (Jenya Dodina). So the budding adult must find his way into the confusing world of his elders alone.
All of this is seen from Nadav's confused, adolescent perspective. He hates his father, he thinks. Then he finds himself drawn to him. He lusts for Nina, then feels betrayed even though she knows nothing of his misplaced affections.
There's naturally a measure of distance in Nadav's view he's mostly watching rather than acting. And there are times he knows things he couldn't possibly know. But that doesn't detract from the film. Rather, it adds to its richness.
Writer/director Savi Gabizon knows exactly what he's doing the press notes quote him as saying he changed almost nothing from script to final cut. The view here is offbeat, but telling. There are weirdly comic moments and points of tragedy and drama. But nothing is played to extremes. This is a movie about real life, not overly dramatized fiction. And all its characterizations ring true.
I know nothing about Israeli film, but the biographies in the press notes convince me that Gabizon has an all-star cast, led by Zurer, who won the Israeli Academy Award for her performance, one of 11 the film took home, including best picture, best director and best screenplay.
Judging by what I saw when I watched it and knowing nothing of its competition, those awards were likely very well deserved. I can't imagine there was a better, more captivating picture made in Israel last year than this touching, highly unusual family story.
Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.
Nina's Tragedies
**** (out of four stars)
Director: Savi Gabizon
Stars: Aviv Elkabets, Ayelet July Zurer, Alon Aboutboul, Shmil Ben-Ari
Rated: Unrated; in Hebrew with subtitles
Now showing: Ross
The reel story: This unusually framed, fresh coming-of-age picture about a 14-year-old obsessed with his aunt won 11 Israeli Academy Awards.