Rachel's Man

109 Minutes, 1975
Genre:
Feature

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Directed by: Moshe Mizrachi
Cast: Michal Bat-Adam, Leonard Whiting, Mickey Rooney, Rita Tushingham, Avner Hizkiyahu
Production:Michael Klinger
Photographer: Ousama Rawi
Language: English
| Subtitles not available

Director Moshé Mizrahi’s English-language film is a lyrical reimagining of the Bible’s tale of Jacob and Rachel. British actor Leonard Whiting, who had played Romeo in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968’s Romeo and Juliet, steps into the role of Jacob whereas Michal Bat-Adam, Mizrahi’s wife and lifelong creative collaborator, plays Rachel.
Jacob runs away from his parents’ home. He arrives at the home of Laban, son of Bethuel (aka Laban the Aramean), played by Mickey Rooney, where he meets Rachel and instantly falls in love. Her father, however, forbids her to marry Jacob before he weds her older, and far less fetching sister, Leah. The famous biblical tale comes alive with the voiceover narration of actor Robert Stephens, paired with breathtaking shots of Canaanite nature shot by DOP Ousama Rawi, and a spellbinding score by Georges Moustaki. Unfortunately, despite a formidable international cast and crew, and Mizrahi’s novel approach to an otherwise endlessly retold narrative, the film tanked both at the box office and with critics.
The film gets its title from a number of studies which suggest that Jacob’s divine name, Yisrael, is in fact a mis-transliteration of the Hebrew monicker ‘Ish Rahel’ (‘man of Rachel.’)

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