Physically under-developed, Yoni is a loner in the small coastal moshav in central Israel.
Struggling on a daily basis to develop his physique in time for his forthcoming Bar Mitzvah, the intelligent but bullied youth trades completed homework for cash, enabling him the illegal purchase of protein powders from the local gym.
Yoni’s home life is equally lonely and fractured – his parents barely speak to each other as secrets and unvoiced accusations remain beneath the surface, bills mount up and no one seems to be dealing with paying for the bar mitzvah.
Into this unstable world suddenly steps 17 year-old Tomer, Yoni’s severely autistic older brother, forced home due to the closure of the institution he has called home for a number of years.
Yoni discovers painful truths about his dysfunctional parents and his estranged brother. The secrets they have suppressed and continue to hide – Miri’s ongoing affair with the father of the biggest bully at school, his father’s dope addiction and subsequent loss of job, but also the abandonment of Tomer at a very young age and the impact it had on everyone’s lives.
It is Yoni, in spite of his young age, who is left to cope with his brother and the obsessive behaviours and to navigate the oppressive, judgemental enquiry of neighbours.
Obsessive collecting of insects is not something readily welcomed. But learning (aloud) passages from the Torah for his bar mitzvah provide Yoni and Tomer common ground as the older sibling becomes obsessed with the story of Noah’s Ark.
It is the Ark that is the metaphor for Mabul and the sending of the floods to cleanse all sins. All central characters in Mabul, with the exception of Tomer, are sinful. The floods and the ark provide a new hope, a new beginning as sins are acknowledged and, finally, confronted.
The cast
One of Israel’s finest and most popular actresses, Ronit Elkabetz excels in her role as the frustrated, achingly sad Miri who, as the kindergarten teacher, is faced each day with the terrible decisions she had to make years earlier. As her husband, veteran character actor Tzahi Grad is the perfect foil, the man losing a sense of himself and seeing life slipping away, but without the willpower to prevent it.
But it is the two boys that steal Mabul and make it their own. All silences, gestures and melodramatic gestures, 25 year-old Michael Moshonov collected the Israeli academy award for best supporting actor for his sensitive portrayal of Tomer.
Yet towering over them all is debutant Yoav Rotman, a slight 13 year-old boy whose interpretation of the confused, angry, isolated, desperate-for-love Yoni is pitch perfect, the chemistry between him and Moshonov wholly convincing as two brothers prepared somehow to face their demons together.
Mabul is far from an easy film. It won a host of awards at the 2010 Haifa International Film Festival including best Israeli film, but it does not make it a ‘piece of entertainment’.
Instead, superb performances and an excellent script make it a worthwhile film but ultimately it is its very subject matter than makes it a complete downer, difficult to escape from the stultifying morass of life at the Roshko home.
Personal rating: 2.5 stars
Mabul
- Directed by Guy Nattiv (Strangers, Offside – short)
- Written by Guy Nattiv (Strangers, Offside – short), Noa Berman-Herzog (The House on August Street – documentary, The Flood – short)
- Produced by Daniel Bauer (A Matter of Size, Separation City), Ina Fichman (Undying Love – documentary, Inheritance), Tami Leon (A Matter of Size, Strangers), Chilik Michaeli (Strangers, Beaufort), Avraham Pirchi (A Matter of Size, Strangers), David Silber (Zoi Sdom), Oliver Simon (A Matter of Size, Separation City)
- Starring Ronit Elkabetz (The Band’s Visit, Or), Yoav Rotman, Michael Moshonov (Lebanon, The Policeman), Tzahi Grad (Someone to Run With, Eli & Ben)
Keith Lawrence - Published writer of articles in magazines, newspapers and websites, predominantly on culture, alongside ghostwriter/editor/copywriter.
Join the Conversation