Hanna K.
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Hanna K. |
| Country of production | France , Israel |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1983 |
| length | 105 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Costa Gavras |
| script | Costa-Gavras Franco Solinas |
| music | Gabriel Yared |
| camera | Ricardo Aronovich |
| cut | Françoise Bonnot |
| occupation | |
| |
Hanna K. is a French film drama by Costa-Gavras from 1983 . The film looks at the life of an American - Jewish lawyer in Israel , whose everyday life is influenced by the Middle East conflict . The constellation of their relationships is a metaphor for the political constellations in this conflict. The film shows an understanding of the interests of both Israeli and Palestinian people.
action
Hanna Kaufman is a US-American - Jewish lawyer and descendent of Holocaust survivors. It is to Israel emigrated and has been in Jerusalem Jura studied. She is an emancipated woman and lives a “threefold life” - her American, through her husband, a French and the self-chosen, Israeli. In the course of the film she seeks and finds her position in Israeli society.
Hanna defended as a public defender the Palestinian Selim Bakri, who illegally entered Germany to Israel and along with a number of suspected terrorists was picked up. He is therefore under suspicion of terrorism and is charged with illegal entry into Israel. Selim states that he only came here to reclaim his family's home. The very old and historically valuable building in the village of Kfar Rimon, which was confiscated by the Israeli state, had been in his family since the 19th century. Hanna's defense saved him from imprisonment. It can show that he has previously asked for entry several times without receiving an answer. However, he is deported to Jordan .
The prosecutor in this case is Joshua Herzog. Hanna had an affair with him and is now unintentionally pregnant. Hanna is officially married to the French Victor Bonnet. Despite their separation, the two have been friends a long time ago. So far, a divorce has not seemed necessary, they both live their emancipated lives, have their affairs. The otherwise self-confident Hanna is insecure because of her pregnancy . After a conversation with Joshua, which reveals his possession and jealousy, Hanna considers an abortion . This is not possible in Israel, but it is possible in France, where her ex- or still-husband Victor Bonnet lives. She contacts him and he visits her in Jerusalem to advise her. Joshua is jealous, watching Victor arrive at the airport. Victor tries unsuccessfully to win Hanna back.
Selim Barki is picked up again in Israel, is in custody and asks Hanna for defense. She follows his instructions and drives to Kfar Rimon with Victor. There she finds a young settler family who recently immigrated from Russia and who built a house for themselves. On her advice, she and Victor visit an old house used as a museum with Byzantine floor mosaic and Arabic calligraphy on the apse calotte . With a bundle of documents in her arms, she tours the whole house in a hurry and finally finds a duplicate of a photograph of Selim's family framed on the wall. Selim can be seen on it as a baby - an indication of the validity of his claim. Hanna goes outside behind the house and follows an old shepherd who calls "Kufr Rumaneh". She discovers the ruins of the old Arab village of Kufr Rumaneh, which was destroyed by the Israeli army - this destruction was seen in the opening sequence of the film shortly before Selim was arrested.
During the trial of Selim Bakri, Hanna received threatening sexist calls because of her commitment to the Palestinians. In a meeting with Hanna, the public prosecutor Joshua Herzog, her old professor Leventhal and another public prosecutor, the political significance of their commitment and the public turmoil are discussed that the resulting process brings with it. The problem of statelessness of many Palestinians comes up . Leventhal sees it as a necessary consequence of the Holocaust to defend Israel, even if it comes at the expense (of civil rights) of the Palestinians. Hanna sees this as contradicting her sense of justice. As a compromise, a deal is proposed to her: Bakri is sentenced to eight months in prison for illegally crossing the border, then receives a South African passport through the relations of the other prosecutor , can enter with him and make the claim on the house again.
A few months later - Hanna's son David was born and is circumcised - she learns that Selim Bakri is on a hunger strike . Hanna now lives as a single working woman in a newly built house with a domestic help. She obtains early or temporary release from prison for Selim, vouches for him and takes him in her garage. Selim and Hanna get closer, Selim now lives in the house, takes David out in the stroller and calls him Omar. Joshua Herzog reproaches her for this, he assumes that Selim is planning an explosives attack. Hanna lets himself be infected by his mistrust and follows Selim in the city and on a trip to a formerly ruinous refugee camp. Selim tells of his precarious life as a refugee, of the loss of his parents in the camps. Hanna is ashamed of her distrust.
Victor Bonnet lands again at the airport and is picked up by Joshua Herzog. Joshua tries to persuade Victor to involve Hanna in a legal dispute that is supposed to serve the purpose of Victor enforcing the rights of access to his son. But Joshua actually wants to prevent the Palestinian Selim from having any further contact with his son. Victor is charmingly disinterested in the matter, he just wants to get back together with Hanna. Both visit Hanna. In private, Hanna Victor reports anonymous threatening calls due to her relationship with Selim. Then Hanna, Victor, Joshua and Selim sit together at the table and have small talk. Victor tells Selim about the tour of the house of his ancestors and asks about the meaning of the Arabic inscription on the apse. He explains this as a quotation from the Koran, which speaks of religious diversity: "I will not worship what you worship, nor will you worship what I worship." The television is on in the background and Joshua turns it up. The news reported that a bomb attack on a packed bus at the Kfar Rimon bus stop that morning. It is clear to Joshua that Selim Bakri is responsible and calls an anti-terrorist unit from the army to Hanna's house. To Joshua's question to Selim whether he had anything to do with the matter, the latter replied: “What should I say? The verdict has already been passed. ”He quickly leaves the house. Hanna throws Joshua out. Then she tells Victor that she now wants to divorce him for good because she no longer knows so clearly who she is - "Kaufmann, Herzog, Bonnet". He goes. Hanna takes a bath, undresses, the doorbell rings. When she opens the door, about twenty armed men from the anti-terrorist unit are standing in front of her door.
Background and stylistic devices
According to Cheryl Rubenberg, the 1983 film Hanna K. is the first feature film about the Israel-Palestine conflict that also shows the Palestinian side. The director Constantin Costa-Gavras portrayed this conflict both on a political and on the level of the love affairs of the character Hanna. These relationships are metaphors for political action in the Middle East conflict . Costa-Gavras researched the positions of Jews and Palestinians in advance, both of whom found Israel's settlement policy worthy of criticism. He spoke to several Israeli and Palestinian mayors who shared their positions and who did not condemn the position of the other side.
The figure of Hanna K. is inspired by an Israeli lawyer who campaigned for the civil rights of specific Palestinians. Costa-Gavras developed - inspired by Herman Melville's novella Bartleby, the writer - the character of Selim Bakri, who refuses everything that is offered to him. The fact that he is demanding the house of his ancestors back is a metaphor for the Palestinians' demand for a state of their own. This requirement is also inherent in the film. Costa-Gavras follows the position of Yitzchak Rabin , who advocated a two-state solution .
Costa-Gavras wanted to inform his audience about the political conflict, but he also wanted to use the close-up camera work, the interiors, the landscapes and the relationships to show the surroundings in which the people in the conflict area live. It was not important to him to build up tension in the film, instead he concentrated on the encounters between the characters in his film. Both or all sides should be understood. To support this understanding, he used very long tracking shots and explanatory sequences. In this way the audience can slowly get an idea and immerse themselves in the problem. He is not given a position.
Jill Clayburgh , who plays the character of Hanna K., is herself an American Jew. After pro-Israeli groups rated the film as anti-Israeli, Clayburgh temporarily withdrew into private life.
reception
When the film was released in 1983, Costa-Gavras' view of the Middle East conflict from an Israeli and an equally Palestinian perspective earned him harsh criticism from the Israeli side. The film's understanding of both perspectives was interpreted as anti-Israeli. As a result, Hanna K. only ran for a short time in both France and the USA. Various pro-Israel groups intervened in the local press against the showing of the film. The film received many negative reviews and only reached a small audience.
The American-Palestinian man of letters and postcolonial philosopher Edward Said said of the film: “ As a political as well as a cinematic intervention, then Hanna K. is a statement of great, and I believe, of lasting significance. ”(“ As a political and equally cinematic intervention, Hanna K. is a statement of great, and I believe, long-lasting significance. ”)
The German film magazine cinema.de, on the other hand, rates the film as average, as it was based on a "half-baked, not very pointed script" that puts "Hanna's private life in the foreground" and thus "robs the film of the necessary political sharpness". The film is therefore a "pale, stretched work, without bite".
The film critic Jörg Schiffauer, on the other hand, credits the film: “Hanna K. is consequently not a strictly staged political thriller that Costa-Gavras knows how to stage so masterfully, but a melodrama against a highly political background ... A simple solution can and will Don't even offer Hanna K. The focus on the private side of the protagonist - a completely unusual point of view in Costa-Gavras' oeuvre - helps to illustrate how deeply this conflict permeates every fiber of Israeli society and the fear of terror and all the accompanying phenomena that it entails becoming an omnipresent one Threatens to become an element. "
Web links
Hanna K. in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Jörg Schiffauer: "Hanna K." by Costa-Gavras, contains an interview by Olivier Pere with Costa-Gavras on December 7, 2015, in: Arte website .
- ^ A b c d e Cheryl A. Rubenberg: Israel and the American National Interest: A Critical Examination. University of Illinois Press, 1986.
- ↑ See Bergan, Ronald: Obituary: Jill Clayburgh . In: The Guardian, November 8, 2010, p. 34.
- ↑ a b film review on cinema.de, accessed on February 12, 2016.