Synonymes

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Movie
German title Synonymes
Original title Synonymes
Country of production France , Germany , Israel
original language French , Hebrew
Publishing year 2019
length 124 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Nadav Lapid
script Nadav Lapid, Haïm Lapid
production Saïd Ben Saïd , Michel Merkt
camera Shaï Goldman
cut Era Lapid , François Gédigier , Neta Braun
occupation

Synonymous (English-language festival entitled Synonyms , dt .: synonyms ) is a film drama by Israeli director Nadav Lapid , that on February 13, 2019 Competition of the Berlin International Film Festival made its debut and came into the French cinema on March 27 of 2019. The film tells a story shaped by the director's experiences about a young Israeli in Paris (played by Tom Mercier ), for whom life in his own country has become unbearable and impossible. The film was awarded the Golden Bear , the main prize of the festival, at the Berlinale .

action

The young Israeli Yoav has just come to Paris with the highest expectations. In France he tries to get rid of his nationality as quickly as possible and to erase his origins. For this he has to pass the naturalization test. His grandfather once emigrated to Palestine from Lithuania. From now on, no more Hebrew word will come out of his lips.

On his first night in Paris, Yoav finds the old apartment that he has rented empty. Since it is also bitterly cold, he tries to warm up in the bathroom. In the meantime, his clothes and luggage are stolen. He stands naked and shivering in the hallway, knocking in panic on other doors. Only in the morning is he rescued by a young couple who take him into their luxurious apartment and change their clothes. Yoav not only receives a chic mustard-yellow coat and a cell phone, but also a large wad of money. The wealthy industrialist's son Emile, who immediately feels drawn to him, is currently writing a novel. His roommate and friend Caroline studies oboe at the conservatory and, according to Emile, used to be a sex addict. Even if Yoav moves out of Emiles and Caroline's apartment and takes a small, dilapidated one-room apartment, he stays in contact with them.

A French dictionary becomes a constant companion in Yoav's new life, and he begins to say French synonyms in the street. In his new job as a security guard at the Israeli consulate, his anti-Israel stance and his refusal to speak Hebrew do not make himself popular. His colleague Yaron sees Europe as a hornet's nest of anti-Semitism , the core of which is France. He has a habit of confronting passers-by on the street or in the metro with his Jewish origins in order to provoke anti-Semitic reactions. Yoav's friendship with him doesn't last long. Yoav also quickly loses his job when, in the pouring rain, he lets the waiting crowd into the consulate without being checked and loudly chants “open borders”.

When Yoav's father comes to Paris, he refuses to meet him and sends Emile instead. Nevertheless, his father comes into contact with him and gives him money. Yoav refuses to speak to him in Hebrew and asks him to leave in English. Emile is increasingly seeing his life as "banal" compared to Yoavs. Thereupon Yoav "gives" his friend his life stories. Yoav also begins an affair with Caroline and, at Emile's initiative, marries her to make it easier to get a French passport. To do this, however, he must attend an integration course.

In order to earn money, Yoav offers himself in the meantime by advertisement as a nude model. As a result, he unknowingly ends up with a porn producer. When he is urged to put his finger into his anus in front of the camera and to speak his mother tongue, he becomes nervous and switches back to Hebrew for the first time. He escapes from a later porn shoot with a Lebanese woman when he is forced to put on a soldier's uniform. His film partner then refuses to have sex with him in front of the camera. Yoav flees to Emile, whom he shortly afterwards asks to get his stories back. Emile agrees. Yoav soon gets the feeling that Emile is tired of his friendship with Caroline and him. There is a break with Caroline when Yoav criticizes a performance with her orchestra, gets into a fit of anger and almost beats a musician. Thereupon, after seven months, he decides to leave Paris and return to Israel. When he wants to say goodbye to Emile, the door of his apartment remains locked. Yoav then tries to force the door open.

production

The Synonymes film team at the premiere of the film at the Berlinale 2019: v. l. No. Tom Mercier, Uri Hayik , Nadav Lapid, Quentin Dolmaire and Louise Chevillotte

Saïd Ben Saïd and Michel Merkt acted as producers . It was co-produced by SBS Productions, Pie Films, Arte France Cinéma and Maren Ades Accomplice Film . Directed by Nadav Lapid . The film is partly autobiographical. After studying philosophy in Tel Aviv and completing his military service, Lapid, like his protagonist Yoav in the film, moved to Paris and then back to Israel to study at the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in Jerusalem.

The main role of Yoav was cast by Israeli actor Tom Mercier , who made his film debut. Lapid dressed him in the yellow coat to make him look like a superhero and to equip him with a kind of uniform that made him stand out from the crowd. Quentin Dolmaire and Louise Chevillotte play his new Parisian friends Emile and Caroline.

The film received production funding (Aide aux Cinémas du Monde) from the Institut français , project film funding from the Franco-German funding commission totaling 150,000 euros and funding from the Center national de la cinématographie.

The shooting took place between October 30 and December 15, 2017 in Paris and Tel Aviv . Shaï Goldman acted as cameraman . The film is cut rapidly and provided with time jumps through flashbacks, switching from one scene to the other between Yoav's home and his new home. Era Lapid , the mother of the director to whom the film is dedicated, worked as a film editor alongside François Gédigier and Neta Braun . She died while the film was being made.

The film premiered on February 13, 2019 as part of the Berlin International Film Festival and was released in French cinemas on March 27, 2019. In June 2019 it was screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival . In August 2019 the film was presented at the Sarajevo Film Festival . The cinema release in Germany is on September 5, 2019. Also in September 2019, the film was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Contemporary World Cinema section, and at the end of September and beginning of October 2019 at the New York Film Festival . The film will be offered in Germany on the Grandfilm platform at Vimeo and will be released on DVD and Blu-ray in summer 2020.

reception

Age rating

In Germany, the film was approved by the FSK from the age of 12. The statement of reasons for the release states that the complex and gloomy topics are mostly not yet accessible to children, so that individual depictions of sex and violence can develop an overwhelming effect for children under the age of 12 .

Reviews

Synonymes received 3 out of 4 possible stars in the international reviews of the British trade magazine Screen International , leading the list of all Berlinale competition films together with the Turkish contribution A Story of Three Sisters . At Rotten Tomatoes , the film has so far won over 87 percent of all critics and received an average rating of 7.2 out of a possible 10 points.

Frank Junghänel from the Berliner Zeitung explains that Yoav has lost the feeling of belonging, but director Nadav Lapid leaves why that is so, but hints suggest that a traumatic experience during his military service could be behind it: “The director has to have had very similar experiences when, after studying philosophy and then serving in the army in Paris, he was looking for a distance from the country of his birth. "

Andreas Busche from Tagesspiegel writes that leading actor Tom Mercier is a real discovery: He fills the freedom that Lapid allows him, and his athletic physique and handsome face have an uncontrollable grace. David Ehrlich of IndieWire describes him as an actor who is able to rule a film, like Daniel Day-Lewis or Denis Lavant , and the film is only carried by the tension Mercier brings to each scene.

Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter reminds Mercier's work of that of Tom Hardy , who could just as well act unclothed. Especially in the second half, the film shows an intensity that was lacking at the beginning. In particular, Mintzer highlights the last scene in which Yoav La Marseillaise speaks, which expresses the dilemma in which the young Israeli finds himself: “He has done everything to escape the militaristic climate of Israel [...] only to then speak the bloodthirsty lyrics of the French citizen in the anthem. ”This is the real fight that Yoav seems to be waging against his own demons.

Often Yoav's initial nudity was seen by film critics as an ultimate new beginning, as a shedding of the past, while at the same time at the end of the film it becomes apparent that it is never really possible to leave your past completely behind you. This is luggage that we can never take off, no matter where we are going, according to film critic Knut Elstermann.

Variety's Jay Weissberg notes that the juxtaposition of French and over-the-top Israeli sentiments creates tension that could overwhelm and potentially upset viewers, but those willing to go along with the twists and turns saw a revelation towards the end when they see the bloodthirsty Compare the text of the Marseillaise with the haunted Zionism of the Israeli hymn HaTikwa .

Philipp Stadelmaier from the Filmbulletin writes that as coolly as Lapid looks at the characters, he looks at the nations: “For Yoav [...] Israel is a nation whose fate is sealed, a country in constant stress; in Paris he meets Zionist Jews who are fighting against neo-Nazis. In France, Yoav likes to see the land of human rights, in the naturalization course the values ​​of the republic and all presidents of the Fifth Republic up to Macron are proudly lectured. ”The logic of the synonyms makes it clear that France, like romance, is a fantasy acts, Stadelmaier continues, and terms such as “ human rights ”, “ freedom ” and “ democracy ” are just words if they are stripped down to the skin.

In his enthusiastic review for epd Film , Jens Balkenborg writes that the film is “the story of a migration, a defamation of origin, a Paris film including one of the most original French themes, the menage -à-trois . The film is a lot, but above all different. With a mixture of language and physique, Nadav Lapid celebrates the magic of cinema and thanks to his fantastic lead actor Tom Mercier (in his film debut!) He can do it without any loss. “There is a lot more to see than the pictures in this film show provide a certainty: "That you can not put your own [stories] so easily, as much as you bare yourself - and Yoav is very often naked."

Awards

The film is in a preselection for the European Film Awards 2019 . Further awards and nominations follow.

Tom Mercier, Nadav Lapid and Louise Chevillotte with the Golden Bear

Berlin International Film Festival 2019

Stockholm International Film Festival 2019

  • Award for the best script in the Stockholm XXX Competition (Nadav Lapid and Haim Lapid )

Ophir Awards 2019

Prix ​​Lumières 2020

  • Nomination as Révélation masculine (Tom Mercier)

Sydney Film Festival 2019

  • Nomination for Best Film for the Sydney Film Prize (Nadav Lapid)

Web links

Commons : Synonymes  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for synonymes . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 190469 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ a b Jay Weissberg: Berlin Film Review: 'Definitions'. In: Variety, February 13, 2019.
  3. ^ Bénédicte Prot: Review: Definitions. In: Cineropa.org. February 15, 2019, accessed September 24, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Franco-German Funding Commission supports Margarethe von Trotta's new project. In: ffa.de, July 13, 2017.
  5. ↑ a b Synonymes. In: berlinale.de. Retrieved February 15, 2019.
  6. ↑ a b David Ehrlich: 'Definitions' Review: An Astonishing, Maddening Drama About National Identity. In: indiewire.com, February 14, 2019.
  7. ↑ Program of the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 . Retrieved May 30, 2019 (PDF; 83.8 MB)
  8. ↑ Kinoscope 2019 Lineup Unveiled. In: sff.ba. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
  9. ↑ Start dates Germany In: insidekino.com. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  10. ↑ Kate Erbland: NYFF Announces 2019 Main Slate, Including 'Parasite', 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire', and More. In: indiewire.com, August 6, 2019.
  11. ↑ Björn Becher: Starting today: Stream one of the best films of 2019 and support the cinemas. In: filmstarts.de, April 3, 2020.
  12. ^ Synonymes on the VoD page of Grandfilm at Vimeo. (Video)
  13. ^ Reason for release for synonymes . In: Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry. Retrieved September 4, 2019.
  14. ↑ Ben Dalton: Two films tie for top spot on Screen's final Berlin jury grid. In: screendaily.com, February 15, 2019.
  15. ↑ synonyms. In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 17, 2020.
  16. ↑ Frank Junghänel: Berlinale Competition: “Synonymes” - How an Israeli starts over in France. In: Berliner Zeitung, February 13, 2019.
  17. ↑ Andreas Busche: “Synonymes” in the Berlinale competition: Living and dying in Paris. In: Der Tagesspiegel, February 14, 2019.
  18. ↑ Jordan Mintzer: 'Definitions' ('Synonymes'): Film Review. In: The Hollywood Reporter, February 13, 2019.
  19. ↑ Knut Elstermann in conversation with Nadav Lapid and Tom Mercier: Synonymes in the Berlinale Nighttalk by RBB Radio Eins on Youtube (video)
  20. ↑ Knut Elstermann: "Synonymes" - Nadav Lapid & Tom Mercier in the Berlinale Nighttalk - Golden Bear of the Berlinale 2019. February 15, 2019, accessed on September 24, 2019 .
  21. ^ Philipp Stadelmaier: Synonymes. In: filmbulletin.ch, print edition 4/2019, June 12, 2019.
  22. ↑ Jens Balkenborg: Critique of Synonymes. In: epd film. August 23, 2019, accessed September 24, 2019 .
  23. ^ Jochen Müller: Lola-Abräumer in pre-selection for the European Film Award. In: Blickpunkt: Film, August 20, 2019.
  24. ↑ EFA Feature Film Selection. In: europeanfilmawards.eu. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  25. ↑ Winners at Stockholm International Film Festival 2019. In: cision.com, November 15, 2019.
  26. ↑ Hannah Brown: 2019 Ophir Award nominations for Israeli film prizes announced. In: The Jerusalem Post, July 22, 2019.
  27. ↑ Les nominations 2020. In: academiedeslumieres.com. Retrieved December 3, 2019 (PDF; 256 kB)