My Daughter My Love

Although maybe this movie wasn't preponderantly filmed on location in France, where the story is set, it's reminiscent of those works of the French New Wave that preferred a succession of intriguing scenes to a thrilling one-track-minded plot.

A decade ago, Sivan Levy won Israel's top acting award for the film Six Times, where she played a girl who looks for love in all the wrong places. My Daughter My Love could be thought of not only as a kind of comeback but almost as a kind of sequel, as if her character had grown up and still kept mismanaging her life. As we wonder what her problem is, so does the ostensibly main character, her father, who has dropped by for an entirely different reason and doesn't realize how much has gone wrong. Along with him, we see the situation reveal itself from a number of different angles, but in no hurry and not without tangential material.

One odd aspect of the movie is that occasionally the actors' faces are seen less than clearly as they speak, as if to allow for dubbing later. But although Sivan Levy wasn't nominated this time for the national acting award, Sasson Gabai was (as her father) and so were Albert Iluz (as her father's confidant)-- and Shem Tov Levi for the musical score.

Sometimes when the movie ends, I feel emotional or it gives me some food for thought, or there is a character I might feel I identify with or feel for; sometimes there's a new idea or even a lesson that I learn.

My Eureka after this one was that for a good movie it's not enough to just have the text of a script and the people who will recite it from memory. Somehow I have been lucky enough with films and it didn't even cross my mind that what the actor is saying is a written, printed and well learned line, I was rather concentrated on watching the film itself as a work of art. In this one, however, the emptiness of almost all the characters and their interactions disturbed me to a great extent. The plot is fine, but the characters just need to be worked on! Yes, the acting is mostly bad, but there should be at least something to act!

It felt like the film had to be finished with a tight deadline, which took its toll on its overall quality. The only thing I liked was Sasson Gabay's presence and his kind smile. But it's not worth it. Don't watch it.