The syntax of families

It’s easy to forget, from the vantage point of 53, how constant the issue of normality is when you’re 13 or 14. One psychologist I’ve heard reckons that the key universal refrain for teenagers is “Am I normal?” followed, (in my view) by “How do I fit in?”, “Do I want to fit in” and “What will it cost me?” I was thinking about these things yesterday watching the Israeli film Intimate Grammar, directed by Nir Bergman, which focuses on a teenage boy, Aharon and his struggle with these questions.

The film focuses on one family and their interactions, the bitter, abrasive mother, the hapless father and the two siblings, Aharon and his slightly older sister. The title, which I love, forces us to think about the grammar of relationships – of families. The three of us who saw the film together viewed the family differently – because of our own particular family grammar. For two of us, the mother was a pretty horrible experience, for the third, she was like her own mother and therefore interacting within the norms of behaviour. What are the rules in this Israeli family? How do people customarily display love, anger, the need for space?

The film begins in 1963 with black and white footage of Israel’s Independence Day. The larger political situation sits at the outer extremities of this film. It is referenced by characters and omnipresent only in the ways in which politics touches the lives of individuals; the Holocaust survivor’s appreciation of the importance of food, compulsory military service, active youth on kibbutzes. The immediacy of the film is based on its attention to the small neighbourhood where the family live. This small space is riddled with low-level conflict, and neighbourly abrasions. It’s shot in beautiful early 60’s colours like an old Polaroid. It’s claustrophobic in intention, we are squashed around the kitchen table enduring the squabbles, incipient tension and love that is part and parcel of this family. Like Koreada’s films (especially Still Walking), we are forced to be part of the painfulness and the lovely intimate moments that make up this family’s life.

The film is based on David Grossman’s novel. He was interviewed in the Paris Review about this and other novels and said, in relation to this:

I became a more friendly child in those years, more active socially, yet I remained introverted. In The Book of Intimate Grammar there is Aron, a secluded, lonely child, and his best friend Gideon, the all-Israeli boy, who goes out with girls, is in the Scouts, and wants to be a pilot. I modeled Gideon on a friend I had when I was sixteen—I even interviewed him. When the book came out, I sent a copy to him and anxiously awaited his reaction. He called me after some time and said, I liked it and, of course, I found myself. I am Aron. That was amazing to me. If I had heard him say that when I was sixteen, my entire life would have been different. My sense of solitude, of hopelessness, of being totally excommunicated—all this would have been different.

I love this quote. It really distils the experience of being an adolescent. That no one is as wretched as you, as uncool, as un-whatever it is that you have a yearning for. And, unbeknownst to you, everyone around you is feeling the same. Aharon (the Aron of Grossman’s quote) is small for his age. Bergman deals with this theme subtly in the film; it is a preoccupation but not one that we expect will dominate the boy’s life in quite the way it does. It made me remember a Maltese boy I taught in 1983. John was very short for his age. He was, in the parlance of my adolescence “a late developer”. John, a lively, intelligent boy who practised magic tricks on weekends, hung himself in a shed at the age of 17 and a half. I would’ve been about 24 or 25 then – a young teacher – I remember being really upset that he’d given no inkling that the height thing bothered him. It matters, that stuff about body image, about fitting in, about girls and being cool. So what Bergman gives us is a film about difference (newly emergent Israel, life in the cheek by jowl suburbs) and universality. It’s pretty classy.

Lemon Tree

Yesterday, in the course of my work, I stopped to think about why the olive branch is a symbol of peace. Fortunately, at least for workplace efficiency, Wikipedia is at hand to respond to idle thoughts like this and it came up with the following; “In Western culture, derived from the customs of Ancient Greece, it (the olive branch) symbolizes peace or goodwill. The original link between olive branches and peace is unknown. Some explanations center on that olive trees take a very long time to bear fruit. Thus the cultivation of olives is something that is generally impossible in time of war.” So there. Not known. And then I thought a bit about Lemon Tree, a film that I saw last week.

The film, made by Israeli director Eran Riklis, explores what happens when the Israeli Minister of Defense and his wife move to a new housing development which is right next to an old grove of lemon trees owned by a Palestinian woman who has inherited the block from her father. The issue becomes one of security – how can a government minister be safe when it is so easy for terrorists to sneak through the grove and lob a grenade into his property? The lemon trees must go. So it’s about property, boundaries, rights, history, fences, large imposing fences, safety and also what happens to the little people in this large historical struggle. Riklis said somewhere that one of his inspirations for making the film was hearing the stories of Palestinian people who had taken their legal issues to the Israeli High Court. The article I read said that he thought that was a tribute to the Israeli justice system. Anyone watching the film will have their own views about that.

The film starts with the domestic. Widowed Salma, played by Hiam Abbass, is making preserved lemons. The camera pans in close as she chops the lemons and adds chilli and liquid. It’s a beautiful, intimate scene. Outside there is the clanking of furniture as two men deliver the furniture belonging to the Minister of Defence, confusingly named Israel, into their new house, overseen by his wife, Mira. By morning, a watchtower has been built, overlooking Salma’s grove and soon after, she receives a letter telling her that the trees must be cut down.

The plot around the receipt of the letter is particularly poignant. The letter is in Hebrew so she can’t read it. She must go to a Palestinian café to have it translated and we see her entering the all-male café, the resultant hush in the room, the offhand treatment from the Palestinian men who are drinking coffee, who let her know that she will lose her trees and also, that she must not accept the compensation offered by Israeli authorities – “We don’t accept their money.” Salma is alone.

Hiam Abbass’ portrayal of this woman is one of the most interesting things about the film. Abbass has a very beautiful strong face and it’s just wonderful seeing an older woman in a really strong role. She conveys strength, hurt, resilience and yearning so so well. I loved watching her. Riklis said that one of the reasons he made this film was his desire to find a good role for this actress – may she be in many more films. Terrible things happen to Abbass but I never felt emotionally manipulated by the film-maker. I felt for her without thinking of her as a victim because she does fight back against the order to lose her lemon grove.

At one stage, in court, she says ”I am a real person” and this is possibly the crux of the larger message; that for too long, people on both sides of this debate have demonised each other. The film also explores the experiences of Mira, the wife of the Minister. Both women are lonely; both have children in the United States and have seemingly little in their lives apart from their respective work. We sympathise with both women who have little power or input in the larger politics of this world.

The ending is particularly dramatic so I won’t give it away. It’s really powerful as a metaphor for what is happening in Israel at present. Maybe it’s naff to think about that Seekers song – “the fruit of the poor lemon – it’s impossible to eat” but somehow that fits with the ending. The fruit of this particular conflict does no one any favours. And is not likely to in the immediate future.