Day After Day

With its mood of disconsolate philosophising and sexual/romantic unfulfilment against a background of generalised political malaise, Gitai's movie plays like a hetero Israeli version of Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment. Hyper-tense Moshe (Ivgi) desultorily goes through the motions as an army reservist (he seems to have no other employ), while fending off advice from his overcaring mother and arguing about the pointlessness of having children with his wife, who is on the verge of departure. Built loosely around the tale of the possible sale of the old family home, the film presents a three-layered portrait, of Moshe's family and friends, of the changing city, Haifa, and of the state of the state of Israel. Only slowly do we realise Moshe's is a family of mixed Israeli/Palestinian descent. It's a movie about becoming old as a new state itself grows into complex maturity, but it's too diffuse and parsimonious with its insights.