Ronit Elkabetz offers the 'Post' a behind-the-scenes peek at her movie 'Seven Days.'
By LAURE WYBIERSeven Days 88 224(photo credit: Les Films du Losange)
Ronit Elkabetz is celebrating the recent release of her newest movie, Seven Days (Shiva), which she cowrote and codirected with her brother, Shlomi. It recently earned Ophir awards for Best Supporting Actress (Evelin Hagoel) and cinematography. In honor of this second chapter of a planned trilogy (To Take a Wife came first), The Jerusalem Post sat down with the codirector and leading actress to talk about the film, its origins and working both in front of and behind the camera.
What do you feel Seven Days is about?
In general, it is about a social process and how it is reflected in a single family - about the dramatic change of traditional family values, like hierarchy and solidarity. It describes the rift in an immigrant family - Jewish and Moroccan - trapped between the world it came from, where it drew all its values from, and modern society. To Take a Wife [Elkabetz's 2004 film also written and directed with her brother, Shlomi] already talked about this process by examining a couple's crisis and the dream for independence of the heroine, Viviane.
In this installment, we try to look at what's going on from the aspect of the whole family. Every member had to renounce a bit of himself when he arrived in Israel, in order to be reborn in a capitalist and individualist society that he had to conform to. So we try to understand what is strongest for those immigrants today in Israel. Is it tradition, rules, values or progress, modernity, or is it every man for himself? And what influence does it have on the family group?
It's not a light movie: mourning, Jewish traditions, financial crisis. We can easily feel the tensions and the frustrations of the characters. We see them arguing. So why did you choose to add the Gulf War context?
Israel has never known anything but war. If you look back, you'll see that all the movies of the past 60 years that take place here are tied to the political context of the country. And it's the same for me. As an Israeli, I can't tell a story in Israel without mentioning its situation.
How did the project of writing a family trilogy with your brother come about?
Shlomi and I knew since our childhood that we would do something together later. We have always been close. I am the eldest, so I waited for him to grow up a little. I went to live in France, he in United States...
But in 2000, when I felt ready to take the camera in my hands, I called him in New York and I said. "Look, we are going to sit down, just the two of us, to forget everything and to write a story that we'll direct together. Get ready, I'm coming!"
And this is what happened. We shut ourselves away for a month, working intensively 15 to 20 hours a day. We knew from the beginning that it would be a trilogy that would deal with family. And in the center of everything would be a woman, Viviane, and a fight for independence. She is the center of all creation for the trilogy.
The way you shot this film is very uncluttered: The camera is static during long takes. It doesn't follow the characters. Why? What does it mean?
For To Take a Wife, we chose to put the camera very close to the faces, as if we wanted to catch the motions of the soul and the hearts of the characters, of the couple. But for Seven Days, it was different because the leading role in this story is the family. We thought a lot about how to create closeness while staying far from each character, without moving, with 20 people together all the time. The idea of manipulating the camera, making it run after everyone everywhere, was absolutely out of the question. We knew it wouldn't faithfully convey what we wanted to say.
And also, we wanted the actors' fight - restricted to one shot - to be the same as the one between the characters, who were captive in this house during a whole week. Both lose their landmarks, have no break. Neither can run away and they remain exposed to each others' eyes.
And finally, it was also important for us to respect the spirit of this story, full of the heavy and restrictive rules of mourning: not to go out of the house for seven days and nights, to sit, to sleep, to eat on the floor, together, always, without changing clothes, without taking care of yourself, clearing the house of everything that can distract from the mourning.
So what remains? Four walls, people and that's all. You're naked.
Therefore, we decided to film in a single simple and realistic way. Of course it was not easy. We took a big risk. And only after 10 days passed in the cutting room did we understand that we had taken up a challenge.
Was it easy for you to switch from director to actress and vice versa?
Absolutely not simple! It was very hard. For To Take a Wife, because my character was in every shot, I decided to remain in the character's mood, whether I was behind or in front of the camera. Well, it was difficult for the staff and the other actors. Nobody could joke with me since Viviane was usually in a grave state. But this was the only way I found to make it work.
For Seven Days, I thought I would do the same thing. But it was worse. There, the director side of me was interfering in my acting, and when I was on the set, I was constantly looking and checking the others instead of thinking about what I had to do. And I was exhausted because I was doing two full-time jobs. You know, originally, my dream was to direct a movie with my brother... quietly!
In the movie, there are a lot of long group scenes. How did you work with the actors?
We rehearsed a lot. Step by step. First alone with each actor, then two by two, three by three, etc. And when finally we brought the whole group together, everybody had already worked separately and with the others. There was no improvisation at all. The casting was done during the writing. We chose famous actors because we wanted to use their strong individualism. This way, they had to find their places in the group, to find a way to exist in it, exactly like their characters.
And I think it was hard for them at the beginning. But when they realized that the most important element was the group's strength, each started to make room for the other. Strong connections appeared between them and it created an amazing energy on the set.
A lot of people see you as an ambassador of Israeli cinema in the world, especially since the international success of The Band's Visit. How do you live with this, and more generally, how do you see Israeli cinema's recent blossoming in the world?
It's great. I believe that Israeli cinema can do what nobody has succeeded in doing yet: to open a wide window between Israel and the rest of the world. This country was born under the cameras of the others who have always presented it through the conflict. It took us time to realize that we could also take the camera to show our vision of Israeli society and to say, "Wait, we are also human beings. We live, we breathe, we dream, we have personal projects!" In my career, I always choose roles that would make me able to talk in a radical, intimate, human and sociable way. This is what is important for me. I cannot tell empty stories.
What do you wish Israel for its 60th anniversary?
I wish for us to manage to respect our neighbors, soon - exactly like we do now, here in Jaffa, in an Israeli Arab's coffeeshop, where we meet to work and to eat, just as naturally as anywhere else. I hope we succeed in living a normal life.
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