Hatufim - In the hands of the enemy
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| German title | Hatufim - In the hands of the enemy |
| Original title | חטופים |
| Country of production | Israel |
| original language | Hebrew |
| Year (s) | 2010–2012 |
| Production company |
Keshet TV |
| length | 45 minutes |
| Episodes | 24 in 2 seasons |
| genre | Thriller , drama |
| idea | Gideon Raff |
| production | Gideon Raff , Liat Benasuly |
| music | Avraham Tal, Adi Goldstein |
| First broadcast | March 6, 2010 (Israel) on Channel 2 |
| German-language first broadcast |
May 9, 2013 on Arte |
| occupation | |
| |
Hatufim - In the hand of the enemy (Original title in Hebrew חטופים chaṭūfīm , German 'kidnapped' [ pl .]; engl. Prisoners of War ) is one of the most successful Israeli television series . It was created by Gideon Raff and tells the fate of three Israeli soldiers who are captured in Lebanon . In the first season two of them return home after 17 years of imprisonment and have difficulties finding their way back home. The focus of the second season is the fate of the third soldier, who is initially considered dead.
The first season was broadcast in Israel on Channel 2 from March to May 2010. A second season ran in Israel from October to December 2012. In Germany, the first season of the series was in May and June 2013, the second season in April and May Aired on Arte in 2015 .
Hatufim was the inspiration for the award-winning American television series Homeland radio station Showtime and the Russian television series Rodina (Homeland) by, 2015.
action
Set in 2008, the series is about three Israeli soldiers, Nimrod Klein, Uri Zach and Amiel Ben-Chorin, who were captured seventeen years earlier during a secret mission with their unit in Lebanon.
First season
The story begins with her return home after years of negotiations over her release from captivity in Syria . While Nimrod and Uri return alive, Amiel is believed to have died in captivity in the first season.
The first season describes in 10 episodes the difficulties of reintegrating Nimrod and Uri, who are traumatized by captivity, into a society that has made them national icons . In flashbacks, their cruel experiences of torture are portrayed drastically. The return to their previous, violently broken off family life turns out to be difficult for everyone involved, as the two men have to cope with and process what they experienced in captivity, while the family has to deal with the return of the strangers.
Nimrod's wife Talia has worked tirelessly to get the prisoners released and overwhelms Nimrod with her dominance. Nimrod's daughter Dana was only 2 years old when he disappeared and compensates for her grief and longing for her father with sarcasm and indiscriminate affairs with older men. His son Hatzav is scared and wants to evade military service. Flashbacks and nightmares torment Nimrod himself with outbursts of violence.
Uri's girlfriend Nurit has now married Uri's brother Yaki and their son Assaf with him. But Uri and Nurit are still in love.
Amiel's younger sister Yael can only slowly accept the loss of her beloved brother with the help of the psychologist Ilan.
Nimrod and Uri have to undergo a psychiatric assessment in a rehabilitation center . When the military psychiatrist Chaim Cohen finds contradictions in her stories, an investigation is opened. The military agent Iris is set as a female decoy on Uri. She is supposed to find out whether Nimrod and Uri have been "turned over" to enemy agents while in custody and what they know about Amiel's whereabouts.
At the end of the season, Nimrod and Uri discover that the Israeli intelligence service knew the location and circumstances of their imprisonment from the start, and that Amiel did not perish while in custody.
Second season
The second season (episodes 11 to 24) shows how Amiel converts to Islam and outwardly changes sides. He now calls himself “Yusuf”, has a beard and wears a takke . He also speaks only Arabic instead of Hebrew .
In order to avoid further torture and to obtain the release of Nimrod and Uri, Amiel has agreed to serve the kidnappers. He marries the Muslim Leila. He also teaches Ismael, the son of the headmaster Jamal Agrabiya, and is being built up to succeed him. When Jamal dies, Amiel and his wife look after Ishmael as if they were their own son.
The viewer gradually learns the complex background of the plot, in which the fates of the individual protagonists are closely interwoven.
During a terrorist attack on an Israeli primary school, the father of the then six-year-old Ynon was shot by the assassins. The attackers in the elementary school were overwhelmed by an Israeli special unit and arrested. Among them is a certain Abdullah who, 17 years later, was released as one of more than 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Nimrod and Uri and returned to Syria. Together with Amiel, he is said to have carried out an attack on the Israeli border troops at the behest of the Children of Jihad terrorist organization led by Sheikh Kasab.
Ynon has meanwhile become an elite soldier. On behalf of the Israeli secret service, he is supposed to free Amiel and bring him back to Israel. Ultimately, the operation carried out under the code name "Operation Yehuda" succeeds. Abdullah and Sheikh Kasab can also be killed in the process.
It turns out that Jamal, of all people, had been informing the Israeli secret service of the fate of Nimrod, Uri and Amiel for many years. He had undertaken to do this after he was arrested in a weapons smuggling operation to Israel, but not arrested, but recruited as an agent for the Israeli side. After Jamal's death, his confidante Amiel had secretly maintained contact.
After a phase of estrangement, Nimrod and his wife Talia approach each other again and want to try a new beginning. Dana especially likes to see that. Hatzav begins his military service.
Uri and Nurit, however, split up. When Uri is diagnosed with cancer, he withdraws from Nurit and goes on a trip abroad alone.
Without finding out about Amiel's identity as an Islamist terrorist, Nimrod and Uri see him again. His sister Yael refuses at first, but then takes Amiel back into their parents' house.
At the end of the last episode, “Yusuf” changes his appearance back to the veteran Amiel Ben-Chorin. He shaves, wears jeans and a T-shirt and speaks Hebrew again . But he returned to Israel without his wife, to whom he is very attached. He maintains the Islamic ritual prayer together with Ishmael.
Amiel gets into an identity crisis. Military psychiatrist Chaim Cohen wonders if the entire operation wasn't a little too easy.
Awards
Israeli TV Prize 2010
- Gideon Raff (Best Series, Best Director)
- Ishai Golan (Best Actor)
- Yaël Abecassis (Best Actress)
Israeli TV Prize 2013 (nominated)
- Best series
- Assi Cohen (best actor)
- Gideon Raff (Best Screenplay)
Seoul International Drama Awards 2013
- Grand Prize (Hatufim, 2nd season)
criticism
- In depicting grief and feelings in everyday life, the Hatufim series proves to be a master of subtle nuances: for 17 years the characters - especially the wives - have tried in their own way to deal with the loss of a loved one. Some have drawn a line under the past, others have never given up hope. The return of the abductees seems to be just as emotionally catastrophic as their disappearance. Especially Yael, the sister of the killed Amiel, suffers from it. She fantasizes that her brother is with her. Nurit, on the other hand, feels very guilty about Uri. Based on these individual fates, Hatufim paints a differentiated picture of Israeli society today and the conflicts that move it.
- The realism that characterized the first season takes a back seat to some unlikely twists and turns in the second.
- The subject of "prisoners of war" is very painful for Israelis and borders on the national taboo. Almost every Israeli has to join the army, it can hit almost anyone. Several thousand Palestinian and Arab extremists have been released over the years from agreements in return for Israeli soldiers. Many of them later took part in attacks again - this is why such barter deals are extremely controversial in Israel. Hatufim is the first attempt of its kind to shed light on the fate of the released soldiers. [...] The TV drama attracted a lot of attention in Israel, but it also met with criticism. The Israeli prisoner Gilad Schalit, who was later released, was still being held in the Gaza Strip by the radical Islamic group Hamas. Miriam Groff, whose son was released in 1985 after three years of imprisonment as part of a controversial prisoner swap, criticized Hatufim as a “promo for Hamas and a Schalit deal”. The series only encourages extremists to kidnap more Israeli soldiers, she told the army broadcaster at the time.
- With Hatufim, screenwriter and director Gideon Raff addresses the subject of "prisoners of war", which is highly taboo in Israel, for the first time and asks publicly whether a prisoner of war can really ever return home from captivity. The first season impresses with the realistic and intimate portrayal of the main characters Nimrod Klein and Uri Zach, who are ultimately left alone with their post-traumatic stress and find their way back to a civil life only with great difficulty. The German viewer is also impressed by the strong contrasts that the second season shows. While efforts are being made to “integrate” in Germany and there are increasing numbers of binational and mixed denominational marriages, the fate of the prisoner Amiel Ben-Chorin alias Jussuf reveals a world of contradictions and incompatibilities. Judaism and Islam face each other, rich and poor, educated and unenlightened - religious, civilized and violent, militarily arrogant and the means of guerrilla struggle. Security interests dominate public life. On the Israeli side, the military, the secret service and courageous civilians are able to assert themselves against militant Islam, even if the well-being of individual compatriots has to take second place. In this respect, the series provides an insight into a policy of mistrust, dissimulation and confrontation towards the closest neighbors in the Middle East, which is little known in a united Europe. Above all, there is the question of loyalty and the need to have to make an unreserved decision for one side or the other.
Web links
- Hatufim - In the hands of the enemy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Official Website (Hebrew)
- Hatufim: Season 1 episode guide
- Hatufim: Episode Guide Season 2
- Ulrich Gutmair: Israeli TV series Hatufim: Middle East as a prisoner of war . TAZ, August 10, 2013. Retrieved May 16, 2015.
Individual evidence
- ↑ ARTE Magazin 5.2013, pages 28/29
- ↑ Hatufim on arte.tv ( memento of the original from April 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Manuel Raynaud on the "Hatufim" series on arte.tv, accessed on May 16, 2015.
- ↑ Ingo Way: Hatufim Part 2 . Jüdische Allgemeine, April 16, 2015. Retrieved May 16, 2015.
- ↑ "HATUFIM" ON ARTE: Israeli original for "Homeland" comes . Handelsblatt, May 6, 2013. Retrieved May 16, 2015.
- ↑ Interview with the director Gideon Raff ( Memento of the original from May 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on arte.tv
