Israel, after (just) another war. Hagit and Yoav, two people without any political involvement - either right or left. Hagit is video cutting at a TV news office. Yoav a piano player with an average audience.
The war is over, but the ambiance of mistrust and the pressure on freedoms is becoming heavier. Journalists are under permanent observation, mostly through surveillance cameras installed in their offices. People active in the cultural field are regularly requested for reporting to the police. The piano player himself is not allowed to leave the country, due to unspecified reasons.
People - or rather some of them - are coping relatively well with the new - but not completely different - circumstances. The usual 'protectsia' operates well and a daughter of a police officer can successfully apply for a role in a play directed by a director recently interogated by her father. Or a journalist whose father is a top official in the Ministry of Defense is left unscattered physically and professionally by a little storm aimed at the son of a high personality in the establishment accused of murdering a young girl.
Because of this journalist, Hagit and Yoav's lives will be upsided down for ever. They represent the perfect scapegoats of anti-democratic measures. Without a clear political support, without political opinions, focused on their work only without uttering any opinions, they are becoming victims against their will. Hagit accepts to take an USB stick from her journalist colleague and she is not even curious to check the content.
The psychological depth of the characters is very well built, catching perfectly the weaknesses and the average answers to political pressures. Far from having an obvious agenda, the characters are left to talk by themselves which makes the narrative flow clean and clear, in a very natural way.
Using physical coercition and psychological pressure, the authorities are able to make them 'confess' imaginary crimes, bringing other people into the story as well, as innocent as them. But this is how mostly authoritarian regimes survive: they turn innocents, apolitical beings into informers even though the information provided might be false. Under pressure, and with the clear reward in sight (which means freedom) as long as names are dropped, most of us will willingly betray a friend or a relative. It always happened and will always happens. If we want to keep being human we need to get rid of such methods. To leave such an environment or united, to fight it.
Yoav and Hagit, can be any one of us.
(I've read the German translation of the Hebrew version)
Rating: 4 stars
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