{"id":12392,"date":"2015-05-08T00:16:13","date_gmt":"2015-05-08T07:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=12392"},"modified":"2015-05-06T17:42:36","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T00:42:36","slug":"dancing-arabs-screens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/05\/08\/dancing-arabs-screens\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancing Arabs screens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eran Riklis, director of Dancing Arabs<\/em>. (photo from Mongrel Media)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Dancing Arabs<\/em>, which was part of the most recent Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, has its general release on May 15. A multilayered coming-of-age story, the screenplay is by Sayed Kashua, who wrote the novels on which it is based, and it is directed by Eran Riklis.<\/p>\n

While called Dancing Arabs<\/em>, the film is a combination of Dancing Arabs<\/em> and Second Person Singular<\/em>, two novels with very different tones.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read a first draft that Sayed wrote before I joined the project and it was much more Dancing Arabs<\/em> and it was much more kind of a comedy,\u201d Riklis told the Independent<\/em> in a phone interview. But that changed. The first part of the movie, \u201cwhich was almost pure Italian comedy,\u201d became a way to draw in the audience, \u201cmaybe taking away any preconceptions or resistance that an audience might have when it comes to see a film, where it has all the opinions in the world about the Arabs, and this and that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riklis wanted the audience \u201cto fall in love with the character and then, when the film changes its tone and it gradually becomes more and more dramatic \u2026 you can\u2019t walk away because you love this character and you want to root for him, you want to join him on his journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the novel Dancing Arabs <\/em>being autobiographical, Riklis said he had to remind Kashua that the film was a different entity. It was about Eyad, \u201cand even though there are reflections of reality, the grandmother and the father, whatever it is, it still is a new life, which is true of almost any film that deals with a real story at least partly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge was \u201cto do something which is at once meaningful and yet communicative, and striving to reach a wider audience. For me,\u201d said Riklis, \u201call my films, or most of my films, deal with, let\u2019s say, not easy issues, but I always try to \u2026 remember that this has to be a good story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reaction to his films has varied. \u201cIf you look at The Syrian Bride<\/em>, for instance, it had a very warm reception everywhere, both in Israel and worldwide. Lemon Tree<\/em> was very tough in Israel because it was a little bit too close to home, and then really about sensitive issues, and yet it was probably my biggest success worldwide.\u201d The response everywhere to Dancing Arabs<\/em> has been \u201cvery emotional,\u201d he said, which makes him happy because it means people \u201cunderstand that this film comes from a place of respect and love and honoring the subject, as complicated as it is, but nobody\u2019s trying to manipulate you here. There is a manipulation in the sense of filmmaking because that\u2019s what filmmaking is about, but I think, emotionally speaking and intellectually speaking, this is a democratic film: it\u2019s like, here are the facts, here\u2019s the situation, here\u2019s a story, here\u2019s the person \u2026 and you judge for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201c… here we\u2019re talking \u2026 about a minority that is 20 percent of the country. That\u2019s 1.6 million people…. This is a major thing and, not only that, they\u2019re not in Afghanistan, they\u2019re living right in the middle of the country, next to us, amongst us, with us, and yet they\u2019re invisible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

When asked what sets Dancing Arabs<\/em> apart from his other films about the region, Riklis said, they \u201chave dealt with either the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the regional conflicts or the Druze conflict, whatever, but here we\u2019re talking \u2026 about a minority that is 20 percent of the country. That\u2019s 1.6 million people. It\u2019s not like you have some people living on the hillside with two camels. This is a major thing and, not only that, they\u2019re not in Afghanistan, they\u2019re living right in the middle of the country, next to us, amongst us, with us, and yet they\u2019re invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The novels\u2019 treatment of an internal conflict within Israel \u201cwas something that I felt was close to home,\u201d said Riklis. \u201cIt\u2019s important enough, and it\u2019s getting more important by the minute. I can see what has happened between the time I shot the film and now. The internal tensions and the growing gap within Israeli society, both within the Jewish one and between the Jews and Arabs inside the country, I felt it\u2019s time to shed a light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riklis and Kashua worked on the script for about a year, on and off, not only because of the material but because they were both busy. Kashua was not involved in the filming process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a strange way, even though it was not an easy film to make on many levels, when I look at it now, I feel it was one of my easiest films,\u201d said Riklis. \u201cThat\u2019s because, emotionally, I was so much into it. People ask me, how can you create an Arab family? Well, first of all, I had Sayed writing, so it comes from a very authentic place, but also, once you step in, you say, well, this grandmother is my grandmother, this father could be my father. It\u2019s very easy for me \u2026 well, not easy, but, I go back to using respect and knowledge and making sure you get your facts right, at least emotionally, then it\u2019s not so difficult for me because when I watch people, when I look at people, I don\u2019t see color and race, not even age, I don\u2019t really care.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with many books, much of the action in Kashua\u2019s novels takes place in the protagonist\u2019s mind. \u201cI think the answer is simplicity,\u201d said Riklis about transforming that style of writing to the screen. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like just tell the story, just go with your characters, put them in interesting situations, make sure that every situation is a step forward.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, I think a director, and almost everybody, is a slave to the story in terms of making sure the story keeps being interesting, keeps being reflective, keeps moving forward.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cOne thing I\u2019ve discovered \u2013 but it\u2019s me and another million directors, I think, or at least the good directors have realized \u2013 that every inch on the screen is significant. You can sometimes convey 10 pages of text by the color of a shirt. There are so many elements that you put together and I\u2019m really careful with that in terms of what a person is wearing \u2026 what\u2019s his environment and what other people are doing and what he\u2019s looking at. And then you have the camera, the kind of lens that you choose and the lighting. There are so many elements that support you but also mean that you have to take responsibility and make sure that they really serve the story. At the end of the day, I think a director, and almost everybody, is a slave to the story in terms of making sure the story keeps being interesting, keeps being reflective, keeps moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Music plays a big role in both books, and also in the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny,\u201d said Riklis, \u201cbecause there were a lot of things in the script where it was like, \u2018Naomi [Eyad\u2019s Jewish girlfriend] and Eyad go to a concert in a club in Jerusalem,\u2019 and we didn\u2019t dig into it\u2026. Then I found myself Googling myself to death to find what was popular in the late \u201980s in Israel.\u201d He came upon a song from a controversial rock opera, with explicit lyrics about rape and the Palestinians, and it became \u201ca totally different scene. Suddenly, it\u2019s emotional, and suddenly Naomi\u2019s not feeling comfortable and Eyad is not feeling comfortable, and it has its own message and it\u2019s brutal, and yet it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Eyad (Tawfeek Barhom) and Naomi (Danielle Kitzis) in Dancing Arabs. (photo by Eitan Riklis via Mongrel Media)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cSame thing went with, for instance, Joy Division, \u2018Love Will Tear Us Apart,\u2019 which came from me.\u201d Riklis had seen Control<\/em>, a film about the British band. He said, \u201cIan Curtis, the lead singer, was epileptic and used to collapse on stage and at some point couldn\u2019t take it anymore and committed suicide at a very young age \u2013 I felt, wow, this is the song for Yonatan, this is exactly a reflection of Yonatan\u2019s life.\u201d A peer who Eyad helps with his schoolwork and eventually befriends, Yonatan has muscular dystrophy.<\/p>\n

There were other sound choices, as well. For example, where the script says Naomi and Eyad go to a movie, \u201cI realized that following the scene where Eyad carries Yonatan to the bathroom, which is a very emotional scene, and he carries him almost like it\u2019s a very Christian or Jewish image \u2026 my next cut I knew was Naomi and Eyad at the cinema and I didn\u2019t want to see a clip from a movie, I wanted to listen to it. Then I said, OK, what\u2019s appropriate here?… I thought about Wings of Desire<\/em>, the Wim Wenders film, which in Hebrew is called Angels of Berlin<\/em>. I said, what we need now, what Yonatan needs now, maybe Eyad as well, is an angel to protect him and to maybe keep him alive. And so I said, maybe it would be beautiful if they [are] listen[ing] to this monologue from the film, the beautiful voice of Bruno Ganz. Even though it\u2019s in German, it\u2019s just purely emotional.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the way I work,\u201d said Riklis. Whether it\u2019s the music, films \u201cor even the news clips that you see in the movie, they always give you another layer. For example, Eyad comes to Edna\u2019s and Yonatan\u2019s house for the first time and he\u2019s left alone in the living room. On television, there\u2019s a report about a suicide terrorist who drove a bus into a ravine and dozens were killed.\u2026 The reality outside is on TV and yet he goes to the window and he watches and he hears the Arab prayers coming from the Old City. It\u2019s almost like he\u2019s looking at his own [life], like his older life is calling him back. And yet, he\u2019s in this fancy apartment in west Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riklis admitted, \u201cIt\u2019s interesting, I think, when people see the film for the second time \u2013 they discover so many things they haven\u2019t seen the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eran Riklis, director of Dancing Arabs. (photo from Mongrel Media) Dancing Arabs, which was part of the most recent Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, has its general release on May 15. A multilayered coming-of-age story, the screenplay is by Sayed Kashua, who wrote the novels on which it is based, and it is directed by Eran […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[3729,3727,3728],"class_list":["post-12392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-film","tag-dancing-arabs","tag-eran-riklis","tag-sayed-kashua"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}