{"id":29050,"date":"2014-03-26T22:49:22","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T05:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=29050"},"modified":"2014-04-03T04:56:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T11:56:23","slug":"magic-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=29050","title":{"rendered":"Magic Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

Avraham Kofines, the curmudgeonly presence at the centre of Magic Men<\/em>, has reached that point when it is time to put one\u2019s affairs in order. As a teenager in Greece, he had been rescued from the Shoah through the kindness of another, a professional magician. 60 years on, he has the opportunity to return to Greece for the first time since his teenage years. It\u2019s time, at last, to track down the by now elderly magician who saved his life.<\/p>\n

If only things were so straightforward.<\/p>\n

Magic Men<\/em> is one of those odd films which seem quite comfortable to travel amidst the tropes of others that have gone before them. The first pointer here is that the recently-widowed Kofines is to be accompanied to Greece by his estranged son Yehuda, a Hasid and a rapper anxiously awaiting news about the gender of his fourth child. He is hoping for a boy, you see. Given that Kofines was not told that he will be coming along, and that the last time they met \u2013 at the funeral of their wife and mother \u2013 there was a clash of sensibilities, it doesn\u2019t take very much to figure out that there may be troubles ahead.<\/p>\n

\"Makram<\/a>
Makram Khoury and Zohar Strauss in Magic Men<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Magic Men<\/em> continues along a predictable arc of clich\u00e9. Kofines, at sea in the alien landscape of Thessaloniki that was once home, strikes up a friendship and an alliance with a friendly whore. (No, I don\u2019t really like the word either. But since we are playing with stereotypes here\u2026). Naturally, she has a heart of gold. And an angelic child in tow. There is a journey (isn\u2019t there always?) which forces father and son to at least try to understand one another. The useful intervention of the Shabbat forces them to pause and take stock. (Think about it. You are observant and you set out on a predictably long journey with the Shabbat hovering on the horizon? Please.) And so on.<\/p>\n

It is not that Magic Men<\/em>, up to this point, is a bad film, because it isn\u2019t. Directors Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor conjure up an easy fluency, a lucidly authentic script shored up by un-self-consciously artistic cinematography. It\u2019s just that one gets the sense that we\u2019ve seen this all before, even if in a different setting. Yes, I know there are only seven stories and so on and so forth, but a bit of variety beyond the superficial never goes astray.<\/p>\n

\"Makram<\/a>
Makram Khoury, Ariane Labed, and Zohar Strauss – Magic Men<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At times, Nattiv and Tadmor don\u2019t do themselves any favours either. The rabid irrationality of racism will never be a clich\u00e9; It will be difficult to make a film set in contemporary Greece without at least referencing the rise of the hard Right, and all that this has brought in its wake. Still, the moment of reflection about contemporary anti-Semitism that they reference feels a bit forced, even if it hadn\u2019t been transposed almost directly from Strangers<\/em>, an award-winning short the directors made a decade ago.<\/p>\n

But.<\/p>\n

All these reservations aside, Magic Men<\/em> warms up through some authentic screen enchantment, the combination of sound characterisation and convincing chemistry between the principals leading us to a film with real heart. Ariane Labed as Maria, the prostitute, is understated yet engaging. One senses real steel beneath her sunny demeanour. You expect this, of course \u2013 if you are forced to hang around hotel lobbies for a living, you need this for self preservation \u2013 but still, she carries it off well. Zohar Strauss, as Yehuda, is both charming and conflicted. It is especially nice to see non-stereotypical depiction of social minorities \u2013 in this case, the ultra-orthodox who has submitted himself to God\u2019s ineffable will. His problems are things that we are all familiar with, in one form or another; Strauss\u2019s subtlety as Yehuda is a nice reminder that as humans, we have more in common than what separates us.<\/p>\n

\"Makram<\/a>
Makram Khoury and Zohar Strauss in Magic Men<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But Magic Men<\/em> is made by yet another peerless performance by Makram Khoury, as the elderly and somewhat irascible Kofines. Beneath his bluster, Kofines embodies real sorrow, fear, anxiety, and in a roundabout and unexpected way, hope. Things can become better. The role becomes real and believable thanks to Khoury, in his second role worthy of note this year (after Sweets). I\u2019ll pay to watch him reading a telephone directory (remember those?). And, despite its weaknesses, Magic Men<\/em> is much more than that.<\/p>\n

Magic Men<\/em> (2013)
\nDirected by Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor
\nStarring Makram Khoury, Zohar Strauss, Ariane Labed
\n100 minutes, Hebrew\/English\/Greek w. Hebrew and English subtitles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Avraham Kofines, the curmudgeonly presence at the centre of Magic Men, has reached that point when it is time to put one\u2019s affairs in order. As a teenager in Greece, he had been rescued from the Shoah through the kindness of another, a professional magician. 60 years on, he has the opportunity to return to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29050","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\/29050","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\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}