Cinema
He Walked Through the Fields
הוא הלך בשדות
Yosef Millo · 1967
Synopsis
Uri Kahana, nineteen, the first child born on kibbutz Gat ha-Amakim, returns after two years of study: his father has enlisted in the British army and his mother lives with another man. He meets Mika, a young refugee who has arrived from Poland with nothing to be welcomed into the kibbutz, and falls in love with her. Self-assured, attached to his country, his family and his comrades, he nonetheless owes himself first to the Palmach, and the film follows him, torn between his own people, Mika and the missions entrusted to him.
Context
The screenplay is by Charles Heldman, Yosef Millo and Moshe Shamir; Yitzhak Agadati and Yaakov Steiner produced the film, shot in black and white by James Allen. Sasha Argov wrote its music, arranged by Vladimir Cosma; songs were written the same year to two of its tunes, one of which was often covered. The premiere took place in Jerusalem before Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and Mayor Teddy Kollek. The critics were lukewarm, the public numerous. Nurit Gertz sees in it an individualist hero returned to the collective, Liat Steir-Livny on the contrary a defeated sabra.
Who it is for
An hour and a half, in Hebrew. It helps to know that the book it is drawn from had made Uri the very figure of the young man born in the country.
Prizes and reception
Divided reviews, but 324,000 admissions in Israel; Millo never returned to directing for the cinema.