Is Tel-Aviv Burning?

98 Minutes, 1967
Genre:
Feature

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Directed by: Kobi Jaeger
Photographer: Manfred Thomas
Original Music: Yohanan Zarai
Languages: English, Hebrew
| Subtitles not available

Director Kobi Jaeger’s film, whose title is a nod to René Clemént’s 1966 French wartime drama, Is Paris Burning?, also has the alternate title 60 Hours to Suez. The film was released in the immediate aftermath of Israel’s stunning Six-Day War victory – a time of nationwide euphoria – and was, in fact, the first film to have tackled that conflict.
Is Tel Aviv Burning? Comprises several parallel plotlines – all set on the eve of the war. The stories play out concurrently as a way of conveying the reality of life in Israel where the national and political are forever invading the individual’s space: Nachum is a relationship with Rachel who is currently rehearsing the antiwar play, Lysistrata, when he is suddenly called up as a reservist soldier; Swiss and Irish volunteers, Jacques and Beck, arrive in Israel to join the war effort; Jonathan, a reservist Air Force pilot, finds himself out of commission following an emergency landing during which he suffered a back injury, and is now struggling to come to terms with the fact that he has been benched from any and all frontline action; Uri decides to go out clubbing, despite his father’s protestations who is trying to get him to realise the seriousness of the situation, but when the radio announces the call up to reservist service – Uri, sure enough, drops everything, and puts country first.
The film, made in the spirit of other European modernist films of the period, intersperses the personal narratives with docu-archival footage and montage sequences, including a speech by then-Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, civilians digging trenches, etc. One particularly memorable highlight is the discotheque scene where singer-songwriter Edna Goren performs her smash hit, ‘Mendelbaum,’ (lyrics: Yoram Taharlev), with music by Yohanan Zarai who is also behind all the other music featured in the film’s soundtrack.

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