Hakir

Editing her phone conversations over images of the Wailing Wall, the filmmaker scrutinises personal, religious and political interactions in “the most private public place imaginable”.

“You lack inner peace, I can see it in your eyes…” With this abrupt remark thrown at her by a woman visiting the Wailing Wall, Moran Ifergan is reminded of the religion she had left in her late teens – she who used to come to this sacred site in Jerusalem. Confined to the women’s section, which also gives her a partial view of the men’s, she integrates the Wall’s basic function into her autobiographical documentary by separating sound and image. On one side, her private conversations invaded by her family’s worries as her couple turns out to be friable; on the other side, the mass of stone of the Holy of Holies, with its thousands of prayers slotted into the cracks, its omnipresent tourists, its youngsters eager for selfies, its battalions come to resource their patriotism with biblical myths and the national narrative. The film also embraces the political tensions surrounding the site: at the very time terror attacks occur, the filmmaker’s “sexy Arab friend” leaves her a message enjoining her to get around to learning Arabic, as her father is Moroccan – and, to boot, on Jerusalem Day, when the Israelis celebrate their 1967 seizure of the old city… Through the power of editing, the comings and goings at the Wall become enveloped in the drama of family life, the hysteria of a mother and sister, the growing separation from the husband, but also the friend’s humour full of girly wisdom. The blustering disillusion of the young independent mother, and free-lance worker, is tempered by a humble recognition of the virtue of tears. (Charlotte Garson)