Language:
French
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
Israël, contradictions d'une démocratie coloniale
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2021) 135-146
Keywords:
Motion pictures History 21st century
;
Identity politics in motion pictures
;
Motion pictures Political aspects
;
Film criticism
Abstract:
Since the 2000s, Israel has successfully exported a new cinema, showing groups hitherto little or not represented on the big screen: women, Mizrahi Jews, the Palestinian minority in Israel. Can this more critical cinema also be used as a “soft power” by an Israeli State particularly concerned about its image? Mainly based on an analysis of the discourse of reviewers in France, the United States, Britain and Israel, this article offers a multifaceted answer. The practice of financing and production is not based on any strategy of “soft power”. The small minority of films directly critical of the military and the occupation, well received outside, have angered some Israeli politicians, with calls for self-censorship during Netanyahu’s terms of office. Beyond any political intention, the films are subject to reinterpretations and misunderstandings that can have unpredictable effects, for example on the understanding of the status of women, Jewish or Arab. Each country proposes a different emphasis: more critical and political in the U.K., more cinephilic in France, more “balanced” and cautious (like their journalists) in the USA. Only a small minority of directors, mainly Palestinian Israeli citizens, have chosen exile, while Israeli cinema continues to propose a critical, discourse on their society, which is rare in the mainstream media.
DOI:
10.3917/come.119.0135
URL:
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