The Day
After I’m Gone, written and directed by Nimrod Eldar
8.5 out of
10
For those
who have a teenage daughter – like this viewer – and others actually, this film
would echo, provoke emotional empathy and perhaps create some significant
worries – is the ‘child’ safe? – in one scene in the movie, the father of the
missing girl says she is no longer a child, when asked by a police woman, but
she then underlines that for the law, up to a certain age, she is still ‘a
child’.
Menashe Noy
is wonderful as Yoram, the father of a troubled daughter, a man whose silences
are formidable - the actor can evidently play in some of those Japanese plays
where they say nothing with words, but speak volumes with their face changes –
a doctor at a wild life park, where they bring in a jaguar – at least it looked
like one – which seemed so real and yet one would wonder if they used special
effects, or they just filmed when such an animal happened to be brought in for
some checkup or an issue…
Maybe they
adapted the script to the animal…if the park had to examine some other species,
we would have seen the panther brought in – maybe this was the panther – and some
interaction is filmed among the animals, where some visitor walks out of the
car, to get the ball for his son, attracting the criticism of the doctor and
the wrath of one of the guardians, who explains that in case the rhinoceros were
to come charging, the guard would have had to ‘annihilate it’…that was not the
word he used, which was anyway translated from Hebrew, but it was a suspense
moment for the under signed…
What does
he mean? He would kill the poor beast for a stupid ass?
The daughter
of the veterinarian, Roni, is missing and he has to call the police, where they
emphasize that she is a ‘child’ and ask him some questions that bring forth
amusing answers, that also show how old fashioned the man is, at least in things
connected with iPhones – he has a cellular that appears to have been made
sometime before 2002, or cost $ 2 – tweeter, social media, because he has no
idea if the daughter has an Instagram account and almost nothing about what she
does online…
Roni returns
nevertheless, but just as we may think this problem is over, in the middle of
the night, there are heavy knocks at the door and when the father opens, a
uniformed man and a woman are at the door, together with some other emergency
response people behind.
Although it
may look clear that this is official and not a prank call, Yoram wants to see
identification – this being Israel, it could actually make a lot of sense,
given the many attacks, the permanent state of alert cause by various murderous
lunatics that kill innocents, the rockets that come raining down from
fundamentalists, Hezbollah and so many others.
Alas, the
hero becomes more than unreasonable, quite pathetic in his opposition to the emergency
unit at the door, even after they say that there is an outfit which has
received an alert message, indicating that someone had expressed the intention
to commit suicide at this address, identified with the IP numbers on the net…the
father is insisting that she has returned, it is alright, he had made a
notification about her missing, but all is fine now, she is asleep, in her room
and there is no need for all this kerfuffle in the middle of the night.
It goes on
like this for what appears to be a very long time, until the emergency responders
get into the room of the girl, who has indeed taken something dangerous, but
the fight is not over, because now the veterinarian shouts he is a doctor and
explains what they need to do…she has taken ‘x’ and he gives the name of
whatever he is sure she has ingurgitated and makes every effort to act in the
direction he is sure it must be acted…
The others
are successful finally in restraining him and they take the girl to the
hospital, where another somewhat amusing, if also outré scene takes place, for
while Yoram is waiting on a hall, others are in the same place, two of them
ultra- orthodox, religious men, with the well-known hats, the curly long
sideburns and the continuous bending back and forth, accompanied by the reading
of holy texts and while they do this, another ‘man of god’ comes to the waiting,
anxious veterinarian and offers him some texts, just like Mormons, Witnesses of
Jehovah and other denominations often do and indicates where to read…what
passage.
Yoram is a
freethinker – or at least he looks it and his attitude looks like he does not
give a penny for the idea of reading prayers to make his child recover – but this
turns out to be a critical moment, that would reveal just how much he loves his
daughter, because he would relate that he prayer for her while waiting for her
hopeful recovery, though there would be many tensions between them.
Indeed, he would
comment on the fact that there is an element of hate included in…love and he is
not saying it, but positive psychology studies have shown that parents
experience a boost in wellbeing when…their children leave home – there would be
some, better said many explanations for that…teenagers can be difficult to
handle, as Roni proves so eloquently, and the continuous fights between the
guardians that have to impose limits on alcohol, time to come back from
parties, smoking weed or anything in the house or anywhere leads to a sensation
of relief when this clash is over…
The film is
not just about the relationship between widowed man – his wife had died – and motherless
daughter, for they visit with relatives and the theme of racism, intolerance is
exposed through Arie, a fundamentalist on this side of the divide, upset for
good reason though when a monument is almost destroyed, though his explanations,
rants, abuses and disgusting racism and intolerance are there on scree to show
us how terrible this attitude can be…
