Cinema
Avanti Popolo
אוונטי פופולו
Rafi Bukai · 1986
Synopsis
June 1967, in the last moments of the Six-Day War. Two ordinary Egyptian soldiers, Khaled and Gassan, wander hopelessly through the Sinai to regain the Suez Canal and go home. Along the way, they meet a Bedouin shepherd, the abandoned jeep of a dead UN soldier, whose whisky quenches their thirst and makes them drunk, a British television crew, then an Israeli patrol which they join, in a wandering that turns into farce. Khaled, whom his theatre comrades nicknamed the Jew, has kept in memory Shylock's monologue.
Context
The title comes from Bandiera Rossa, the hymn of the Italian communists, which the characters sing. Born of a student project, the film was inspired in Bukai by the wrecks of tanks and the shoes he had seen in the Sinai, on a trip with his parents, shortly after the war. He produced it independently, with the help of Micha Shagrir and his company Kastel; Yoav Kosh did the cinematography and Uri Ofir the music. Salim Daw plays Khaled, Suheil Haddad Gassan. The Jerusalem Cinematheque describes it as the first Israeli film to look at this war from the Arab side; it was restored for its thirtieth anniversary.
Who it is for
Under an hour and a half. It is worth knowing that the best-known scene turns a Shakespeare text around: here it is an Arab who pleads the Jew's cause.
Prizes and reception
Golden Leopard at Locarno in 1986; chosen to represent Israel at the Oscars; ranked in 2013 first of the fifty greatest Israeli films by the Maariv website.