Another film night, another film review, this week the film was entitled Foxtrot. Foxtrot (2017) is an Israeli film that has had many notable mentions.As I watched the 2 hour film I came to realise the effect of silence and that even though the dialogue in the film is kept to a minimum, the film remains poignant and succeeds in delivering the necessary emotions without saying a word.
As an entry to the story, the film commences with the keywords “Mrs. Feldman”, and suddenly the audience realise that they sense the shock and devastation of these words that her son has died in the line of duty, without explicitly stating the obvious. The family wreaks with grief, the mother has been placed under sedation and the father is in such a state of shock, that he must be instructed to drink water every hour.
The audience sees the inner grief being built up in the father and his need to release it, he goes to a window, will he jump? And then as he screams into the pillow beside his sedated wife, one can sense the anguish and at the same the deep love for his son Jonathan. His dog comes to comfort him and unfortunately he kicks the dog( I am so sad about that because I am a lover of animals :-) ).
His brother comes to the apartment to comfort him, he then expresses his desire to have no one around and proceeds to visit his mother in her retirement home to inform her of the devastating news. As he tells his mother she understands the words but seem unable to feel or grieve, leaving the audience wondering why she is in such a state.
As Mr.Feldman returns home he is greeted by the chaplin who will conduct the funeral services, he is unable to process the sayings of this man and just wants to see his son alive, the pain is overbearing. The director of this film is amazing, as there is no unnecessary sound effects and music, but one can hear every footstep, each tear as it streams from their eyes, every breath of despair. This enables the audience with so much silence, to sense the dialogue without anything being said.
A twist of fate suddenly happens and it is realised that the family has been given the wrong news (case of mistaken identity) and their precious son is indeed alive at his post in a desolate part of Israel. The father is so relieved and angry at the same that he demands that is son to be sent home to be reunited with his family.
The scene then shifts to Jonathan Feldman, he and his friends are in the middle of nowhere, it kind of reminds me of Mars, just dirt and nothing else to be seen for miles. The mundanity of their post is felt through the screen, and suddenly a moment of laughter when a camel randomly crosses the post. The presence of the camel for me signifies a dual meaning, I see the camel as “life” and the camel throughout movie marks the development of vital scenes.
Each day Jonathan and friends face the same boring happenings, whether their trailer will sink or not and the few random people in their cars that cross the checkpoint. There are few conversations between the soldiers and Jonathan tells his friends the story of how his father once sold his mom's precious bible for a pinup girl magazine (we later found out that this bible was given to the mother just before her father was executed by the Nazis, and this bible was never to be sold, this action of young Mr Feldman, made is mom have crisis of which she was never able to return from).
One night the usual random car comes to the checkpoint, inside are two sets of couples, the ones in the backseat are having fun. Jonathan looks at them with the yearning to have fun and enjoy himself as any young person would like to do. He makes eye contact with the beautiful girl sitting in the front seat, and though there is silence between them, you can sense the attraction between the both of them.
Tragically, as the car is about to drive, one soldier tells the beautiful girl that her dress is stuck in the door, as she opens the door something falls out and one soldier shouts “Grenade!” and Jonathan who is behind the machine gun promptly fires his weapons and within an instant all occupants are dead, what had really fallen out of the car was a beer can :-(.
A “clean up” crew comes to bury the car (I am thinking with the people inside), and when the senior officer comes he decides not to dig deeper into the incident and decides to close the case even before it is open. The call then comes for Jonathan to head home to his family, unaware of the momentary grief his family has been through.
The scene again then quickly change to a cake, as I saw the cake I quickly think that they are celebrating his homecoming but unfortunately we later realise in the strangest twist of fate, Jonathan is killed while on his way home. The camel is seen standing in the way as the car veers off the road. To me, this signifies you can never predict life and its various circumstances, in the words of my mom, “you can’t get it right”.
The parents are bereaved, and struggle to exist in the space that their son was once in, they look at his drawings and in the end can laugh at it all( with a little help of their son’s weed :-) ). These final scenes have a sudden burst of exposition, which signifies the movement of grief, to anger and finally peace with their strange twist of fate.
Overall I enjoyed this silence within this movie, the sounds of each step and the raw emotions that reels through every moment without most times the use of words. Life is unpredictable, live in the moment and treasure your family.
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