You may know about all the complicated problems facing the country of Israel if you keep up with the news. However, there’s one aspect of Israel’s political situation that’s going underreported. Their film industry produces no fun movies. Finally, a duo of filmmakers can break their country out of the serious, somber movie business.
I discovered
Rabies, the first Israeli slasher movie, at
Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX. It has played a few other festivals like
Tribeca and
London FrightFest, and it will come around again at
ScreamFest in Los Angeles this month. It’s sure to get more attention for blowing the lid off an entire genre, let alone a local film industry.
It’s better not to know too much about the film so it can surprise you, but it does play with a group of young characters in the woods with some bad guys after them. The cast of Israeli stars will be largely unknown to international audiences, unless they’re really worldly. So you’ll discover some exotic talent and you won’t believe where the story takes them.
Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado make their feature film debut with
Rabies. Keshales was a teacher and film critic, and Papushado was his student. Their simple thought of “why not make a slasher movie in Israel” has brought them around the world discussing the festival favorite. In Austin, we spent a full 30 minutes discussing world affairs and cultural differences through the language of cinema.
SuicideGirls: What is the Israeli film industry like?
Aharon Keshales:: Very heavy. If I’m to sum it in one word, it’s heavy. Every film is very existential, tragedy about life and death, during wartime, during the Lebenon war or choose your war. They have a lot of wars in Israel so there are a lot of movies about wars. Or a dysfunctional family, the father figure who’s not that good or even exists, so all the burden’s on the mother’s back. These are heavy films. They’re good. They’re all good, but actually this year, with
Rabies, it’s the first year in a long time, we had 26 films this year in Israel which none of them were related to war or Lebanon. So it was a good year for Israeli cinema to start approaching new genres. We had a biblical comedy,
This is Sodom, which did 700,000 people in the box office. It was the biggest success in the last 15 years. We had
Rabies. We had two years ago
Waltz with Bashir which is about war but it’s animation and it’s a fantastic film. And a lot of personal films. The indie scene in Israel is now growing a lot. Two more horror films are being made these days and we’re doing our next one.
SG: I saw
Walk on Water a few years ago. That was a great way to explore the Israeli/Palestine issue, even though it was series.
AK:: No, the craft is great and the storylines are always great. It just becomes a point when you’re young in Israel and you see for 20 years the same heavy stuff. You don’t want it to vanish. I want other films like
Walk on Water and
Beaufort, they’re great films. I love them as a film critic but we don’t have anything for the young kids. When you’re 16, you don’t go to the Israeli cinema. You don’t see it. You don’t have comedy, you don’t have romantic comedies, you don’t have sci-fi films, you don’t have action films, you don’t have horror films. The entire industry is based upon a very, very old group of people because I think if you’re less than 35, you don’t go to see Israeli cinema. We don’t have anything to see. As a youngster, why would you see a film about a dysfunctional family. There’s time for that.
SG: But they have success making political and war films? In America it’s hard to even make a film about the war we’re in.
AK:: If it’s good, it’ll be a blockbuster.
Beaufort did like 300,000 people in the box office which is a lot.
Navot Papushado:: It’s like the opposite. If you look at the 10 most earning films in Israel, you can see at the top ones are political films or war films. At the end of the line, you can see entertaining films which in the U.S. would probably be the opposite way. On seven points you could see blockbusters and fun films and in the third spots, you might see a political drama or maybe something more of an indie or more dramatic. In Israel it’s upside down and I think that’s one of the reasons Israel’s industry is not that thriving, and it could be. If more films would be more audience oriented and not politically oriented, the pyramid will turn on its head so the seven spots would be saved for audience oriented films. You could see a lot more films coming out of Israel and the Israeli industry would be much more profitable.
SG: American horror films are often based on politics, like the red scare of the ‘50s. With all of Israel’s wars, do they not express it in horror films?
AK:: Yeah, we have a big problem in Israel and it’s called the suspension of disbelief. It doesn’t exist in Israel. Nobody can suspend his disbelief in cinemas so we only have the realistic approach to all these problems. After the Lebanon War, immediately a Lebanon War film. We don’t have a problem talking about it directly. In other countries like the United States, Japan, they can’t handle sometimes the issues at first realistically. So they will deal with it in other genres.
After 9/11, you have a big cycle of horror films which you know are about these things. In Japan you have the horrible bomb so you have Godzilla. You won’t be looking at a film about a nuclear bomb, you will look at Godzilla. But Israel, no Godzilla. We want the same thing that happened in real life because we don’t believe in the surreal. We have a big problem with surreal things because it’s a very realistic country.
SG: Where were you working before you made
Rabies?
NP:: I was a waiter and a bartender in Tel Aviv.
AK:: The best waiter in Tel Aviv.
NP:: Yeah, actually I was a good waiter, not that good of a bartender. Aharon was a professor and film critic at Tel Aviv University.
AK:: And blogger of course.
NP:: And blogger.
SG: Is there work for critics in Israel?
AK:: Yeah, of course. I was a film critic for the biggest website in Israel for five years and then for a few years for the biggest magazine, an entertainment magazine in Israel. There’s work. I don’t know now because print is dying. Nobody pays good salaries on the internet and everybody blogs. So I was at the edge when I saw the cutbacks in every newspaper in Israel and all the magazines. Then I thought come on, let’s do a movie. I said I’m going to need a job I think in a couple years, so let’s make a movie.
SG: Could they use an American critic? I’m asking for work.
NP:: It’s a dying industry.
AK:: In Israel it’s a dying industry, especially film. Politics will always be a big thing in Israel and also sports. As for film, I have to say that when I approach one of Israel’s biggest names in criticism and I told him, “We’re going to Sitges, we’re going to Fantastic Fest, We’re going to
Fantasia, we’re going to Frightfest.” “What? I didn’t hear about these festivals.” I guess you would be bored there because the only thing they know about is the
Venice Film Festival and the
Cannes Film Festival. And no genre festival for them, no horror films for them. They’ll write a two page column on the annual good horror film. So I think the print industry is dead in Israel
and the websites, you don’t want.
NP:: Just be warned because Israeli films are not always that entertaining. Sometimes you feel like you’re taking a class.
SG: Wanting to make a movie is one thing. How did you each learn the craft of filmmaking?
NP:: I was a student at
Tel Aviv Univeristy. Aharon was my professor actually. He kind of encouraged me to go on my own path and explore my own thoughts because Tel Aviv University, and I guess all the universities in Israel kind of want the students to make a really hardcore drama short film that will aim for the Cannes Film Festival or some major film festivals. As a student I always wanted to make my own stuff, my own private fantasies. Aharon was the only teacher who really encouraged me to follow my own path. The crazy thing is that actually following my own path in my first short film got me into the Cannes Film Festival. So after that, Aharon and me became much closer. We said okay, there’s a chance even for our craziest ideas. Aharon became more involved and then produced my graduation film. From there on, we decided to makee the first Israeli horror film. So we kind of learn in the process because Aharon was mentoring me on everything related to script. I must say Aharon is a huge fan of the Hebrew language. If you could see my short film, there isn’t any dialogue at all. Especially in a comedy. So Aharon inspired me a lot in the approach to Hebrew and how to put Hebrew dialogue. I guess the technical stuff is more just trying, just exploring. Even the technical side you don’t get taught a lot in Israel. The first films we did were in HD. We kind of brought HD to Tel Aviv University. Us and the DP of
Rabies, as students we didn’t want to shoot in film because they would give us a small amount of stock, because it’s very expensive. So we kind of started a technological revolution in Tel Aviv University. It’s kind of learn and make mistakes but one thing I guess either you’re born with it or you’re not.
SG: After teaching it theoretically, was making the film what you expected?
AK:: I really designed to make my thesis on the slasher genre actually. I wanted to do an examination of the films of the ‘70s as opposed to the films the 2000s after the 9/11 bombing. To see how the traumas between Vietnam and 9/11 created the same cycle. That was supposed to be my thesis and then I had to go into preproduction with Navot. So everything I learned from my thesis about slasher films, we put it to work in the film. For me it was like I saw a lot of films for my thesis. That’s my main love as a geek and I have to say, Navot is the practice. Even if I had theory in mind, everything we did since our friendship was developed is he will do something very intuitively, because he doesn’t believe in learning a lot.
NP:: I was just diagnosed ADD and ADHD so I had an excuse.
AK:: As to your question, yeah, it’s entirely different. I have a lot of respect for directors because when you’re a film critic, and that’s my point of view, you tend to sit for an hour and a half, sometimes three hours. You see a film and you don’t know what’s the real mechanism that goes into the process until you do one on your own. When you see the month of sweat people draw from themselves on every shot, when you see the troubles, the accidents, the things that go well by accident, not only bad, and the things that are born by sheer luck, you say, “Okay, movies are not like they want you to know.” Everybody’s a big romantic about films. It’s a work of art, he was planning that the whole time, Hitchcock never got to the set and he was directing everything from storyboards at home. Everybody’s a big romantic about how films are made and I was like that as a film critic. I saw a P.T. Anderson film and I’d say, “Oh my God,
There Will Be Blood, he’s a genius.” Then when you go behind the cameras and you see how much is born by luck and sheer fate, you become less of a stylist and you understand a lot that you can plan, but everything is chaos in film. Everything is chaos.
SG: For the Americans seeing them for the first time, tell us more about the beautiful women in
Rabies?
AK:: Ania Bukstein, who plays the lesbian tennis player, is one of Israel’s biggest stars but she’s doing mainly television and theater. She’s a great theater actress. She’s come from a very traditional acting abilities.
NP:: She’s Russian so she has Russian training.
AK:: So she’s a very strict actress and she never does something which is purely fun. Never. Only one series in Israel she played on TV was a B series. She’s very funny but she does all these very heavy characters, all the burden of the world on her back, like every Israeli actor. It’s the only characters they get. So she dug the opportunity to dress up and show her sexy side but also have a lot of fun on screen. So she’s one of Israel’s hottest actresses, and the blonde girl, Yael Grobglas, it’s her debut film. It’s her first time on screen. We were afraid because you put the most delicate actress in her first test with Israel’s 11 or 12 most important actors, we were afraid she would get lost there, but just today we learned that she was named Discovery of the Year for
Rabies. She really is radiant in this film. When you get to the US or foreign festivals, nobody knows who is the hottest or the most dominant actor, and everybody loves Yael.
NP:: Also the bad cop, if you were asking about playing against character, the bad cop in the film is actually a really chubby, clumsy romantic guy. He has really long white hair. He’s like the guy you bring to your mother. He’s the lover, he’s very sweet in all the TV series and films he does. He’s like the sweetest guy, the romantic guy and that we also owe to Aharon. Aharon saw another thing in it. He cut his hair, dyed his hair black, gave him some eyelashes so he became this monster, this totally different thing. He’s an amazing actor.
AK:: He’s a ladies man in Israel. Every lady in Israel loves him. He’s like this beautiful charming figure. Some of them are very natural actors, like the tennis player is a comedian. He’s a comedian and he was the host of a show. He’s not even an established actor. He became an established actor after five years in the cinema and TV but he’s a comedian. He was doing bullshit on TV.
NP:: Showing his ass on TV. He was famous for that.
AK:: He’s like this character in
Rabies in a lot of ways. He’s not playing against type. The other tennis player is Israel’s hottest star. He’s a singer. He’s mostly a singer. He didn’t learn to act in a proper acting school, but a singer and we saw something in him. He has something in his face which is very intense.
NP:: The dark haired tennis player.
SG: What can we say about this film without spoiling anything?
NP:: Best film! No, just kidding.
AK:: You can say it’s a slasher film. You can say it’s a slasher film with a stone to its head.
SG: It was good I didn’t know anything going in.
AK:: We like it that way. We did it in Israel also. We didn’t tell anything about the plotline, just that it’s about a brother and sister who get lost in the woods. Then they meet a psychotic killer. The big brother goes to seek help and four tennis players, two cops and a park ranger are all…
NP:: Tangled in a web of fear and violence.
SG: Is slasher movie really accurate or more of a misdirect?
AK:: I don’t know.
NP:: That’s kind of a spoiler, isn’t it?
AK:: Yeah, because like I said, it’s a slasher film that gets stoned. It gets a stone in its head because it’s not a proper slasher film. We take the slasher film and we break it, but we break it within its rules. So it’s not a parody, it’s not like a
Scream film because we’re laughing with it, not about it. The thing you want to know when you’re doing a slasher film, every time you see a slasher film you ask yourself, “Okay, who are these characters?” Most of the times it’s cardboard characteristics. They do this and that. She’s hot, she’s not. He’s a virgin, he’s not. He leaves for that reason and he dies for that reason. The entire motivation in a slasher film is to just survive. So it’s very basic and we wanted to do a film in which we gave the characters more life. How do you give life to a character that’s only obsessed with being alive, that’s the only thing on her mind? So we set upon a rule that we would give another motivation to every character.
The motivation will be to create a relationship between this other character. You have three people in the same car want the same girl. Even the girl wants the girl. The cop has to talk to his wife. He’s not obsessed with dying or not dying or running away from a psycho. He just wants to talk one more time with his wife. The bad cop has these issues with women. It’s not about killing them. It’s about “I have issues with women. I hate women. I probably have a lot of disappointment from the female gender and I’m obsessed with ladies.” Every character, we just wanted to see what makes them tick. Otherwise they’re just running away from the slasher. So the slasher is really not a big issue in Israel’s first slasher film.
SG: I’m sorry, was Ania Bukstein supposed to be the not hot one?
NP:: No, they’re both hot.
AK:: Everybody’s hot.
SG: Did you have fun with the character types we may recognize: the scared blonde, the douchebag we kind of want to get hurt?
NP:: Definitely. It’s really fun characterizing them and dressing them and putting the words in their mouth because you kind of recognize the characters. You come with a certain amount of expectations from a horror film and especially from this genre. And you get the archetypes of the characters, but still we play with them. It’s not exactly what you were expecting to get but it’s not that far away. We try to put a lot of Israeli mentality.
AK:: It’s that at first. It’s that at first. We’re starting with a very typical, I think everybody notices that, a very typical slasher film. You see the first 15 minutes, everybody says, “Oh my God, we’re seeing the same film again.” That’s the whole point of the first 15 minutes. You’ve got the douche who talks about fucking all the time. The stupid blonde girl who’s like “Oh my God” but look at her in the end. Everything is very stereotyped to the point you say, “Oh my God, didn’t they see the last 100 years in film?” Then we kind of sneak behind your back with a surprise because the douchebag becomes something more complex later on. As for the blonde girl, she’s dumb at first. She’s just scared. But after the sexual harassment scene which I won’t say who does it, you get to see more layers. You just build them one by one. We start as a stereotypical slasher film, you’re getting what you wanted and then no, you’re not getting it at all.
NP:: Also we wanted to deal with the after effects of the violence. A lot of films end with some character gets stabbed to death, gets slashed into bits. We wanted in
Rabies to sometimes show the after effects of it. You can see the death really echoes. Every character, after she dies, it echoes a bit in the film and you get to know something more about her. It was important for us to show the after effects of the violence and by that we kind of reach more whole characters and more layers even after they die.
heheh
meow! have a good night 
