Things Behind the Sun

Yuval Shafferman,the director is an emerging young director in Israel and this is his debut feature. His short film 'Routine', shot while he was a student at Tel Aviv University has won the prestigious 'Best Student Film' award at the Manhattan short Film Festival and with it $250,000 in the year 2003. 'Things behind the sun' is excellent. It is about Pain in the Family. The Political situation in Israel and the Middle East is not mentioned at all but the Social Situation is hinted all the time. Modern Israel with very big Social Gaps. The tense situation, Materialistic Rat Race, Reminds me of "Knafayim Shvurot" by Nir Bergman (Broken Wings 2002). Family drama, Yitzhak (Assy Dayan) the father who hears that his father is dying in a Hospital. His wife has an art exhibition that opens that same week. The older daughter comes home after many years of study and Hi-Tec work on her Laptop discovers that she is Lesbian. Yitzhak has not seen his father in ten years. The younger daughter is Didush, she is 10 year old and nobody even seem to notice that she is there. The dysfunction of the family is nicely brought out in a scene where Yitzhak and his wife are at the verge of a major fight. They are decent enough to know that they should not talk in front of Didush. They ask her to leave saying it is time to bed. Didush says she does not want to sleep yet. Then they try to get around the problem by speaking in English, only for Didush to say something in English and leave at the end of it. The parents did not even know that their own kid speaks English.

All the Characters are played very well. The Script and the Direction are very good. Enjoyed it all-though it is sad and Painful.