At the Venice Film Festival, Amos Gitai ensures that reflection on the unsustainable Israeli situation goes deep, in that space of consciousness to which only art has access. The Road to Jericho, a hybrid documentary that he has been quick to make - "my friend Alberto Barbera encouraged me to speed it up to arrive at the Beinnale in time" - and that mixes, in an unusual way, the present, the past, the archival material and the landscapes where geographically all this takes place, and all of this results in a powerful audiovisual poem about the destinies of humanity.
"We all know that this landscape witnessed the rise of the three great monotheistic religions that dominate two-thirds of the planet. Jerusalem, this small city of one square kilometer, gave rise to great ideas about how to govern the planet, about the question of ethics. So sometimes you say to yourself: what does the landscape tell us? These stones of Jericho are all that remains after all these battles, after all this hatred, after all this manipulation. There is only a pile of stones left. And all that led me to do a political poem, also in the context of a very hostile and toxic situation. So we have to promote a dialogue, not just arguments, not just hatred towards the other.”
The director, who rightly stands out for addressing complex themes, considers that both parties in the Middle East are both angels and bastards. Hence he wants to introduce complexity and invite the viewer “to work as an interpreter, not as a consumer.” And promote a civilized dialogue.
Accompanied by his family and friends - his daughter, a psychologist and linguist, has published a book on the birth of Hebrew as a modern language -, Gitai remembers that in Hebrew, unlike European languages, there is no present, only the past and the future. "And that is also true in Arabic, the concept of time is very similar. So we have many things in common, which should fuel understanding."
In his documentary, arid and profound, the director brings up ghosts: Arthur Miller, Samuel Fuller, Hannah Shygulla, Iréne Jacob, Jeanne Moreau, Ytzhak Rabin... "Those people whom I love and who share their talent with me, including the great playwright Arthur Miller, who talks about his thoughts on what he believes is happening with the colonization of Israel, he says. He remembers Samuel Fuller because he played the role of Flavius Josephus in Gibellina, about the danger that the zealots take power and destroy sovereignty, which is the story of what happened 2,000 years ago, “when Rome wanted to crush Jewish fanaticism,” he indicates.
A Hebrew prayer from Yom Kippur also appears, “fragments that floated in my mind.” Hannah Shygulla with the text of Oscar Wilde Every man kills what he loves. And then, the contemporary images: this small Bedouin school, a place with 300 boys and girls together, which was built with the help of Italian architects using only tires and earth, because they were not allowed to build a room. “Our finance minister decided he wanted to demolish this school,” explains Gitai.
What can cinema do? “Although some filmmakers pretend that we have real power, we do not have real power. And we don't even want to have real power. We only have symbolic power. But symbolic power is also powerful. So I want to raise my voice for these Bedouins and also for this wonderful Israeli group of women and men defenders of human rights who took to the streets and wanted to defend the school.”
“I believe in dialogue. I don't believe in boycotts. In the midst of this toxic situation, we have to talk. The alternative is war. If we don't want to have a war, we have to talk. We have to express our opinion. And the use of the archive is a statement about the present. So I think that's the way it was built. And we felt the urgency to finish it for a festival that I like, which is Venice.”
To what extent are you optimistic about the future? “I wouldn't say I'm optimistic, that would sound too naive. The situation is bad, very bad. My film is almost a lamentation for the country that I love and whose politics I do not share. Those who believe only in force and, when it doesn't work, want to use more force, and more force, and more force, are not going to succeed. That is why we have to maintain hope as an engine of change.”
The director remembers, in this context, his visit to the Basque Country last year, invited by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miguel Ángel Moratinos. "That town, Bailika (Gernika), as you know, was bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1937. And they asked me to talk about the relationship between culture and politics. So I talked about Spain. I said: 'Listen, the duel between Franco and Picasso was won by Franco. He remained in power for more than 40 years, or almost 40 years. But in the duel for memory, Picasso won.'"
One of the crucial moments of the film is the interview with Ytzhak Rabin, when the then Israeli Prime Minister assures that “sometimes peace is built with the worst enemy.” And the images of his murder are also observed, which has been happening for three decades now.
"Rabin's assassination decapitated the possibility of a dialogue. I like Rabin for many reasons, not just political ones," Amos Gitai says in Venice. "That man spoke with simplicity. And he had the respect of the Palestinians... respect is the basis of an agreement. If you don't believe in the other side, there is no agreement. I spoke with Palestinians who negotiated with Rabin, and they told me that, because of his personality, they were willing to move forward. Not all Palestinians, because Hamas and "The Jihad decided to bomb Israeli civilian centers exactly when Rabin gave the order to the army to advance towards Palestinian cities."
