Sydney Film Festival (13) - Gossip more than review about SYNONYMS (Nadav Lapid, Israel/France, 2019)

My goodness here was a film that came with warnings. "Proceed with caution" said the SFF butcher paper catalogue. "...a scabrous view of identity and nationhood. It's not always easy to watch, but impossible to look away."

It's first image shows that some people took it seriously. Before even the inevitable near endless self-aggrandising production company logos, is a shot of the Berlin "Ours d'Or" prize.

Then comes the introduction of the self-exiled Israeli Yoav and quickly we get to him naked, well-endowed and  jerking the morning boner off in the shower before, conveniently, someone unknown slips into his completely unfurnished but palatial apartment and steals everything he owns. He's down to zero. End of prologue...

Cue the generosity of the neighbours, a young couple who look like they might have been cast from an Eric Rohmer movie. They dress him in a yellowish coloured overcoat but apparently can't lend him a shirt... You could go on picking away at the rising risibility and the po-faced seriousness. ...

Nadal Lapid and the Berlin Golden Bear

A major let down from a director whose two previous films Policeman  and The Kindergarten Teacher were very good indeed. There may be something about directors wanting to make movies in the holy city of Paris, home of a million cinephiles. Asghar Farhadi suffered the same fate when he tried his hand there as well with The Past. ...and Sam Fuller long ago.... though Joe Losey made one of his best there... But in general ... better to stay home...