The Prodigal Son

86 Minutes, 1968
Genre:
Feature

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Directed by: Joseph Shalhin
Production Company:Herzliya Studios
Photographer: Marko Yaacobi
Language: Hebrew
| Subtitles not available

Director Yosef Shalhin’s film, which is very much rooted in his own life story, is set in 1930s British Mandatory Palestine and follows 15-year-old Joseph (played by the director’s real-life son, Shaul Shalhin), who comes from a hard-living family in the then-small village of Be’er Ya’akov. The boy flat out refuses to attend the local Jewish Ultraorthodox school (‘cheder’) and is therefore shipped off to boarding school. When his mother is taken ill, he and his sister are sent to live with their aunt, only Joseph struggles to fit in there too. He ends up in Tel Aviv and finds work at a restaurant, but life is no cakewalk there either. The landlady who owns the restaurant accuses Joseph of stealing money, leaving him with no other choice but to flee.
On his adventures, Joseph finds himself wandering the local fields where he is found by the students at a local school (Mikveh Israel), around whom he finally feels at ease with himself; only now he must return to his family in Be’er Ya’akov. He hitches a ride back with a coachman but is then joined by another passenger – a criminal on the run. Joseph is subsequently arrested for aiding an escaped felon. At the end, after all his trials and tribulations, Joseph finally finds a place to call his own, back at Mikveh Israel School where he no longer feels like the perennial strange bird.
Today, the film is mostly remembered for its theme, scored by composer Sasha Argov. Playwright Yaakov Shabtai later added lyrics to the tune, whilst the song ‘Early Evening,’ by folk singer Edna Goren, went on to become a staple of Israeli pop music.

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