Lahav Hatzui

Double Edge is a view of life in the fast lane of Israel. Faye Dunaway arrives in Israel for a 3-week assignment as a photojournalist. She is sure that the Jews are the oppressors, while the Arabs are the victims.

The movie has the confusing feel of Israel. Arabs can be polite one moment, but blood-thirsty the next. It brought back vivid scenes from when I was there for a vacation. It was a particularly rough month when I visited there.

This is a 2-star movie with a 4-star subject. Everyone should watch this at least once in their life. People in the West cannot fathom what it is like in Israel. Enjoy it.

My review was written in August 1992 after watching the film at a Times Square screening room.

Amos Kollek takes a fresh look at the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian crisis in "Double Edge". Strong thesping by Faye Dunaway should focus attention on this interesting indie production.

Dunaway portrays a reporter for the fictional New York Herald who gets a three-week assignment in Israel. Determined to impress her bosses back home with front page stories, she hits the streets of Jerusalem and Arab towns on the West Bank in search of high-profile interviews and breaking news.

Befriended by a novelist (played by director Amos Kollek) in the Israeli army reserves, he gets her an interview with his uncle, Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek (director's real-life dad).

As an American disillusioned by Israeli policy of recent years, Dunaway takes a pro-Palestinian slant on several stoies involving Iaraeli reprisals in Intifada incidents, running afoul of the government censor.

Episodic film contains interspersed interviews by the reporte with real-life figures, from the militant Rabbi Meir Kahane (murdered in New York shortly after filming here) to the familiar Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi. This "witnesses" technique adds verisimilitude and balance to the film but detracts from the forward narrative thrust.

Kollek's low-key lead role makes for an effective foil to Dunaway's hard-driving performance. Her casting is something of a coup, combining glamor, the otherness of a waspish American star and the gung-ho willfulness she displayed in "Network".

Kollek unfortunately fumbles a key subplot in the final minutes. Dunaway finds out that she's gotten a story all wrong damning Kollek for hurting an Arab child he in fact aided as a Good Samaritan. It's too late to pull the story from her next edition. The film ends before Kollek's character discovers the trashing, and the viewer is cheated out of the expected "Absence of Malice" Paul Newman/Sally Field-like confrontation.

Instead, the chilling finale literally thrusts the gut issues of the Arab/Israeli stand-off in the viewer's face. Blase to danger, Dunaway finds herself alone on a remote road in a car being rocked back and forth by angry Arab kids. Pulling a gun out of the glove compartment, she's suddenly at ground zero, propelled by her own survival instincts.

Low-budget production benefits from on-location lensing and Kollek's decision to avoid thriller cliches and stage even the most violent scenes against idyllic, sunny day backdrops. Supporting cast, especially Arab actor Mohammand Bakri as a duplicitous militant for the Palestinian cause, is convincing.

Photojournalist Faye Dunaway arrives in Israel, thinking she knows what the political situation is all about.

Miss Dunaway is one of the treasures of the movies. Although her peak years where in the late 1960s and 1970s, when her iceberg blonde look and ability to play opaque characters who let their thoughts seep through had her on Hollywood's A -- i.e., blonde hotties -- she has continued to give fine performances in tough movies ever since.

There's a lot in this movie that's troubling for anyone who has an opinion on the Middle East, and I think that confusion -- captured in the video cover, which has a terrified Miss Dunaway pointing a gun at the view -- won't change any opinion. It's another terrific performance, though.

I think the fact that this movie embodies the feel of Israel in so many ways is what makes it a great movie. Faye Dunaway's character (Faye Milano) comes to Israel with preconceived notions about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and sees the situation as many people who live outside Israel do--as 'poor Palestinians living under an Israeli occupation'; her time in Israel, however, proves otherwise. She realizes that the situation is so much more complicated then she had believed, and she witnesses firsthand the violence of the Palestinian people, even violence perpetrated by children. However, the movie also shows the human side of the Palestinians & their yearning for recognition. Faye Milano's preconceived views change drastically as she realizes the clear truth of it all--Israel is simply a small democratic state protecting its own while struggling to maintain it's dignity and values.

Moreover, the story highlights the dangers of the media--how a lone reporter's error can be printed and poison the minds of the readers. We don't like to think of our media as propaganda, but often our reporters and photographers sensationalize stories and, in printing them in popular newspapers, send the masses a false image of reality.

There is a story within the movie that highlights this point in an extraordinary fashion.

I visited Israel in the past year & went to visit the children in a Jerusalem hospital, both Israeli and Palestinian children alike. The Israeli doctors & nurses were incredible--treating all children with love and devotion, regardless of their race or nationality. I was struck at the Israeli woman and Palestinian woman in the same room, communicating and wishing the other woman's child well. If you want to see the true face of Israel, it was in that hospital in downtown Jerusalem.

This movie could have been a victim of Amos Kollek's vanity since he wrote, directed and acts in it, and his father is the Mayor of Jerusalem. But fortunately, he also had the sense to cast Faye Dunaway as his lead. In spite of being unable to shake off elements of the gorgon Joan (as predicted by Pauline Kael in her review of Mommie Dearest in The New Yorker), Dunaway lends her considerable presence and technique to the part of a temp journalist in Israel, eager to make an impression. She even gets to take her own photos, a la Laura Mars. At first Dunaway doesn't quite know to respond to Kollek as a suitor (and his performance is so ineffectual that he can't even read a joke well) but soon we get taken away by her and become reliant on her reactions. This film is an improvement on Costa Gavras' Hanna K, since Kollek's focus is stronger, and because he provides a positively brilliant ending, we're probably willing to forgive his own throw-away performance. This film also features Hanna K's accused terrorist Mohammed Bakri in a similar role. (Talk about being typecast!) It also contains interviews with various partisan leaders, including Hanan Ashwari, Abba Egan, and Rabbi Meir Kahane (who was assassinated shortly after the film was made). What is interesting is that the interviews don't affect the tone of the film, since Kollek introduces each location in a similar way, and also because there is no attempt made to allegiance. In spite of Kollek's character being Jewish he is still able to visit a Palestinian household without being murdered. I got a laugh at how Dunaway is offered Moscow as her next assignment, but it's an assignment I'd sure like to follow up on, since seeing Dunaway in the lead of a film is so rare these days. That's of course, if she survives her time in Israel.