Perhaps it\u2019s perverse, but Phobidilia, a movie that centers on Regev, a young man in self-imposed exile from the world, stands out for me in it\u2019s portrayal of women. Oscillating between fantasy and reality, the vibrations blurring the distinction between the two, the film strikes a true chord with its two female characters: Daniela and Jessica.<\/p>\n
Phobidilia, one of six films competing for the Israeli feature films prize at the Haifa International Film Festival, is based on a novel written by Yizhar Har-Lev, who co-wrote the script with the film\u2019s directors Yoav and Doron Paz. Within the confines of Regev\u2019s small apartment and garden the film sets up a dizzying reversal of opposing concepts \u2013 fiction\/reality, success\/failure \u2013 opening them up for observation with a self-conscious smile. It is an utterly self-conscious film, not only referencing film and television throughout, but exploring, through Regev, a consciousness constructed from that media.<\/p>\n
These questions and oppositions are set in motion from the start: the movie opens as the camera surveys the ruins of Regev\u2019s apartment while his voice narrates: \u201cI had everything a man needs to be happy.\u201d The counterpoint between a close-up on the sink full of food remnants and dirty dishes and Regev\u2019s narrated list \u2013 \u201cgood food\u201d \u2013 establishes a jaded ironic tone appropriate for a high tech refugee and his audience of contemporaries. The resourceful Regev has turned adversity into virtue \u2013 virtual reality. Retreating from the imperfect world into his apartment, he relies on television, phone and above all, the computer, to satisfy his needs.<\/p>\n
Like many male fantasies, this one includes a woman, the lovely \u201cI\u2019m just drawn that way\u201d Jessica, who lives in her bedroom, conveniently located on Regev\u2019s computer screen, and like many male fantasies, it is disrupted and irrevocably altered by another woman: Daniela, who appears first as a chirpy, high pitched telemarketing voice trying to rope Regev into responding to a television survey with a promise of prizes.<\/p>\n
How predictable is it that Daniela finds her way into Regev\u2019s shut-off life? Very. But do I care? No, and I\u2019ll tell you why. Other than moving the plot forwards, I don\u2019t always understand why characters in movies do the things they do. Daniela\u2019s motives, however, have an internal coherence that rescues them from the realm of romantic banality. She understands fiction and the need for fiction in our lives; it\u2019s a tool for survival. One of my favorite scenes shows Daniela on the phone at work, talking to Regev and switching back and forth from her \u201cclient\u201d voice to her \u201creal\u201d voice. Her attraction to Regev is not at all mysterious: he is intelligent, creative, cute in an appropriately wasted sort of way, complicated and about as inaccessible as a man can get.<\/p>\n
Then there is Jessica, the \u201creal\u201d fantasy woman, a pay-per-view sex kitten in her soft pink bedroom, ready for anything at the click of a mouse \u2013 what\u2019s not to like? Yet the relationship between Regev and Jessica is anything but simple. Jessica plays an active role in the unraveling of Regev\u2019s perfect world, a very interesting choice on the part of the filmmakers. It would have been easy to let both these women remain clich\u00e9d images \u2013 whore and innocent ing\u00e9nue \u2013 background figures in a film whose intended focus is on the internal world of an individual. Yet Daniela (Efrat Baumwald), while exuberant, is anything but innocent, and Jessica (Efrat Dor) is intelligently seductive and seductively intelligent. Both women are a powerful presence in the film.<\/p>\n
Ofer Shecter gives a convincingly understated performance as Regev, endowing him with just the right combination of obsession, arrogance, pain and self-awareness. The distinction between internal and external reality is blurred as scenes of Regev\u2019s fantasy and lived reality are interspersed with scenes from tv shows and movies, creating a palimpsest of contemporary urban life in its extreme version. Examining the inter-connections of mind with media and other minds and all the possible combinations thereof (including the infamous \u201cratings\u201d), Phobidilia is a cinematic answer to those late night conversations over drinks, when someone asks: what if your brain could exist in a lab and receive all the necessary stimulations to imitate life \u2013 would you want to live like that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Perhaps it\u2019s perverse, but Phobidilia, a movie that centers on Regev, a young man in self-imposed exile from the world, stands out for me in it\u2019s portrayal of women. Oscillating between fantasy and reality, the vibrations blurring the distinction between the two, the film strikes a true chord with its two female characters: Daniela and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}