Exodus (1960)

 

                It is based on the 1958 bestseller by Leon Uris.  Director Otto Preminger did not like the book and had screenwriter Dalton Trumbo tone down the anti-British and anti-Arab vibe of the novel.  Preminger gave the blacklisted Trumbo screen credit under his actual name and this plus the credit for writing “Spartacus” marked the end of the blacklisting era.  Uris did not like the finished product.  The movie was shot on location on Cyprus and in Israel.  It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor (Sal Mineo) and Best Cinematography.  It won for Best Score (Ernest Gold).  Gold also won a Grammy.  The movie is credited with increasing support for Zionism and the nation of Israel in America.

                The British are detaining thousands of Jews in camps on Cypru in 1947s.  Many of them are survivors of the Holocaust and they want to go to Palestine to help start a new Jewish nation.  Ari Ben Canaan (Newman, who first appears shirtless) is a member of the Haganah and has a plan for over 600 Jews to escape in the old WWII transport ship called Exodus.  Ari meets an American gentile named Kitty (Eva Marie Saint) and their relationship starts off rocky, of course.  Kitty befriends a teenager named Karen (Jill Haworth).  She lost her whole family, except her father, who she is looking for.  The British won’t let the ship leave so Ari had the passengers go on a hunger strike and threatens to blow up the ship.  The Brits relent and let the ship sail.  It ends up at Haifa in Palestine.  There they find a conflict between Palestinian Arabs who do not want a Jewish state and a conflict within the Jewish community about how to achieve the Zionist dream of a Jewish nation.  Haganah is opposed by the Irgun, which is willing to use terrorism.  Dov Landau (Mineo) is a young man who survived Auschwitz by being a Sonderkommando.  He is a bomb expert.  The Irgun make use of his talents.  He and Karen fall in love and of course the same thing happens with Ari and Kitty.  If that’s not enough cliches, Ari is friends with Taha, a moderate Arab.  The movie moves on to the Acre Prison break.  Israel declares independence and the kibbutz that Kitty is helping at prepares to defend itself from Arab attack.  

                I don’t mind long movies, if there is a story to be told that deserves the length.  Most long war movies fit this qualification.  Unfortunately, “Exodus” is too long for the story it tells.  For instance, there is a long section dealing with the prison break and the payoff is weak and not worth the wait.  This is typical of a movie that teases action and seldom delivers.  So we’re left with a lot of talking and speechifying.  In fact, the movie concludes with a speech by Ari.  I’m sure no one laughed at the time when Ari predicts a day will come when Arabs and Jews will share the land.  I wonder what he would think if he were around today.  The drama interweaves with the two romances.  This must be part of the reason why the movie was popular with women.  However, there is little chemistry between Newman and Saint Marie and the romance is tepid.  Newman is otherwise strong in a role that was not a favorite of his.  The rest of the cast is not noteworthy.

                As far as the controversy, it appears that Preminger was successful in toning down the anti-British attitude of the book, but they still are villains.  What is surprising is the movie, although clearly sympathetic to the Zionists, does not demonize the Arabs.  The only significant Arab character is so friendly with Ari that he warns him of an impending Arab attack.  The movie did not fare well with British audiences and I have to assume it did worse in the Arab world.  But Americans, who had no dog in the fight, loved the movie.  Especially if they loved tear-jerkers.

None of the characters are real people, but some of the events are based on history.  Karaolos was a detention camp that was part of the system of camps on Cyprus designed to hold Holocaust victims who were determined to settle in Palestine.  SS Exodus 1947  was an old steamer that had been used off Normandy after D-Day as an accommodation ship.  It was used by over 4,000 Holocaust refugees to try to go from France to Palestine, but the Royal Navy boarded her and sailed her to Haifa where the refugees were forced to board other ships to be taken back to France.  Upon arrival at France, the French government refused to force the refugees to come ashore.  The Jews went on a 21-day hunger strike that got worldwide coverage.  Great Britain eventually relented and incredibly decided to send the ships to Hamburg, West Germany, where they were forced to disembark and were put in camps.  You can imagine what the press did with that.  Most of the refugees managed to sneak out and ended up in Palestine. Haganah was the main paramilitary organization that attempted to defy the British restrictions on Jewish migration and used sabotage on railways, bridges, and British ships attempting to deport illegal Jewish immigrants.  It became the main Jewish force in the war for independence and soon morphed into the Israeli army.  The Irgun broke away from Haganah because members felt the older organization was too moderate.  The Irgun became associated with terrorism.  One of which was the bombing of the King David Hotel that was referred to in the movie.  The Irgun believed “the end justifies the means”.  Acre Prison held a lot of Haganah and Irgun members arrested by the British.  The operation was by the Irgun and involved blowing a hole in an outside wall.  Irgun members inside the prison threw grenades smuggled in to keep the guards at bay.  In the chaos, hundreds of Arab prisoners also escaped through the hole.  As far as the kibbutz, it was fictional but represents a typical kibbutz.

GRADE  =  C

Image of Victory (2021)

 

            “Image of Victory” is an Israeli movie directed by Avi Nesher.  It is based on the Battle of Nitzanim in the Israel War of Independence.  It was nominated for 15 Ophir Awards (the Israeli equivalent of the Oscars).  It won for Cinematography, Make-up, and Costume Design.

            The movie leads with the Camp David Accord, which causes a Palestinian journalist named Hassanin (Amir Khoury) to wonder what they fought for in 1948.  Flash back to 1947.  The movie has dual tracks.  One follows Hassanin (Amir Khoury) as he embeds with Egyptian volunteers when they join with Palestinian Arabs living in a village close to Nitzanim.  They train for an attack on the kibbutz.  It should be a piece of cake.  Hassanin narrates his half of the movie.  The other track focuses on the Israeli’s living in the kibbutz.  They are prepared to defend themselves, but the settlers are all amateurs.  They are reinforced by a unit of soldiers, some of whom are convicts.  The Israelis know an attack is coming and they prepare for it.  Even some of the women will participate in the defense.  The kibbutz scenes concentrate on Mira (Joy Reiger).  She is a bad-ass.  When most of the women and all the children are evacuated, she stays to fight. 

            The movie has a romance between Mira and the Israeli commander Avraham Schwarzstein (Yadin Gellman), but it is cursory.  There are tit-for-tat ambushes before the war even begins.  The war breaks out after Israel declares independence.  The kibbutz must be held for political reasons.  That’s the official reason, but an evil political officer thinks losing the kibbutz won’t be too bad.  The settlers will be martyrs.  At first, taking the kibbutz looks possible.  However, the force in the village shows itself to be incompetent.  The kibbutz looks like it will be held.  Unfortunately, an Egyptian unit that passes by on the way to Tel Aviv, gets its butt whipped.  To save face, it needs to have a victory before returning to Egypt.  The kibbutz will be their target.

            The film intends to be fair to both sides, but it is actually about 70% in the kibbutz.  This reflects the fact that it was made by Israelis.  It is a tribute to the defenders of Kibbutz Nitzanim, especially the women.  Mira represents all the Israeli women who fought for Israel’s independence.  Mira is a great character. We don’t see many strong women in war movies.  She not only fights.  She is a rock among the amateur kibbutz members.  Mira is not the only woman who fights.  They look to her as their unofficial leader.  Hassanin reflects the Arab point of view.  He is overconfident about the success of the soldiers he and his cameraman are covering.  He mentions wanting to be like Frank Capra.  He is your typical cinematic reporter. Hassanin is willing to be shot at to get his story.  That story is supposed to highlight the great victory of the Arabs.  Hassanin does want to cover the battle realistically, but his boss expects a puff piece highlighting the courageous Egyptians  We don’t see his finished project, but it is safe to assume it makes the battle into a great victory.  The documentary will be an “image of victory”.  The Israeli movie “Image of Victory” could have been propaganda, too.  Instead, the movie is fairly even-handed. Of course it makes the kibbutz defenders to be heroic.  But it doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that the battle was a losing effort.  The Arab irregulars are also sympathetically portrayed.

 

            The movie is well-made.  The acting is stellar, especially by Joy Reiger.  The dual track format was a wise decision.  We see both sides of the battle.  However, the movie is too micro.  We do not learn what the Arabs are fighting for.  We have no perception of what is going on in the war outside of the kibbutz.  We do know that although Kibbutz Nitzanim falls, the new Israeli nation will be a tough cookie.  The kibbutz stands in for the Israeli nation that was surrounded by hostile forces.  But unlike the kibbutz, the nation was not conquered in any of its wars.

            The story was originally not looked on as heroic.  The surrender of the kibbutz was one of the few surrenders in the war.  Many Israelis felt the kibbutz should have fought to the end.  In the years since, that perception has changed and the Battle of Nitzanim is now considered a valorous event similar to the Alamo.  The movie certainly buys into the current narrative.  The Kibbutz was established by farming families that included Holocaust survivors.  It had two problems:  the land was poor for farming and the settlement was isolated and surrounded by Arab villages.  It was not an easily defensible position.  There was some skirmishing before the war, as portrayed in the movie.  The Israelis consisted of 74 soldiers and 67 settlers.  On the night of June 6, 1948, the Battle of Nitzanim began with artillery fire.  Several Arab irregulars attacks were repulsed.  After an Egyptian unit was unsuccessful in its drive to Tel Aviv, the mission was switched to taking the kibbutz.  It called in aerial bombardment and then followed it with artillery, armor, and infantry. The defenders were able to take out some tanks, but the leader, Schwarzstein, was forced to fall back to more central perimeters twice.  It was decided they had no choice but to surrender.  When Schwarazstein and Ben-Ari went out to negotiate, an Egyptian officer shot Schwarzstein resulting in Ben-Ari killing him and then being killed himself.  Cooler heads then prevailed and the surrender was agreed to.  33 Israelis were dead, 16 were kibbutzers (3 were women).  105 were captured.

GRADE  = B+