Two Recent Films from Israeli TV
by Rayna Moss
(The film "Mother V, A Story About Loyalty", a drama focusing on the image of Mordechai Vanunu's mother, was shown on Israel's Channel 2 on Sunday, November 11, at 22:00. Shachar Rozen's film features Levana
Finkelstein, who won the Best Actress Award at the Jerusalem Film
Festival; the film also won Best Drama Award.)
Hello All,
The film Mother V was broadcast this evening in Israel. What an exciting
and moving event! Honest acting, credible characters, good dialogue and a
positive human and political message. "Not everyone thinks that your son
is a traitor," states one character, a soccer player from Dimona; "What a
man!" says a Bedouin man who gives Mother V a ride to the prison.
The film is quite up to date and sticks close to the facts of Mordechai
Vanunu's life, from his childhood in Morocco and in Israel, his conversion
to Christianity and his adoption by an American couple. Also realistic is
the prison's treatment of Mother V, who has come to visit her son for the
first time in nine years: the guard sends her away, telling her that he
has already had his one visit that week.
This evening's broadcast was certainly something for all Vanunu supporters
to celebrate.
The documentary film "The Bomb in the Basement" was shown last week
on Channel 2, and has already led to some public debate on the issue of
Israel's nuclear arsenal. A commentary in Yediot Ahronot argued that,
although no law has been changed, Shimon Peres simply decided that it was
time to boast about his major role in establishing Israel's "nuclear
option". Therefore, why should Vanunu still be imprisoned?
On the whole, the film added no new information and a large part of it
focused on obscure political maneouvers within the Labor governments of
the sixties. The name of Mordechai Vanunu was not mentioned.
The highlight
of the film was the part in which Shimon Peres described being called back
urgently from Senegal and flown by helicopter, along with the head of the
Mossad, Issar Harel, to discuss with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, the
immediate danger that the USA was about to discover the secret nuclear
plant in Dimona.
Harel commented: "I never rode in a helicopter. I'm old,
but my memory is very good. That sounds like one of Peres' tall tales."
-Rayna Moss
|
