Director Guy Nattiv: “The Hatred of Jews Remains, it Breaks my Heart”

Der Standard, June 4, 2024

German original: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000222449/guy-nattiv-ich-bin-nicht-mit-dem-einverstanden-was-netanjahu-macht

“Golda”, Nattiv's intimate play about Israel's ex-President Golda Meir during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, is currently showing in cinemas. How relevant is Israel's history?

Interview
Valerie Dirk

In 2018, Israeli director Guy Nattiv won an Oscar for his short film Skin, which deals with racist violence in the American neo-Nazi scene. The success opened the doors to Hollywood, and a feature-length version of the material was made by legendary indie studio A24 in 2019. At this point, the filmmaker, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1973, had already been living in the USA for several years. His film Golda, which is now in cinemas, portrays Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir at a crossroads in her career: during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. British actress Helen Mirren plays Golda Meir with an Oscar-nominated mask and a constantly burning cigarette.

STANDARD: How are you doing at the moment, especially as an Israeli filmmaker in the USA?

Nattiv: It's generally a difficult time, both for Israelis and Palestinians. I've lived here for almost eleven years and feel more like a Jewish American than an Israeli. But the rise of antisemitism in the U.S. worries me a lot. As a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I am very aware of what my grandparents suffered in Poland and Romania. And now I am experiencing things that are similar to their stories. The hatred towards Jews.

STANDARD: How does this hatred manifest itself?

Nattiv: Shortly after October 7th, five minutes from my house, someone tried to break into the rabbi's house. He was naked and shouting “I will kill Jews, I will kill Jews.” Fortunately, it ended with his arrest, but it was terrifying. There were also some statements made during the student protests at the universities. When I moved here, I thought America was a safe place for Jews. But antisemitism is more present than it has been for a long time. Not only Israelis are experiencing this, but also American Jews. The war might end soon, but the hatred of Jews remains. That breaks my heart.

STANDARD: You spoke about the university protests. Can you also understand some of the demands?

Nattiv: I myself agree with the protesters on many points. I also don't agree with what Benjamin Netanyahu is doing. I am against this government, it is sick and extreme. Netanyahu should resign along with his extremist cabinet. I can understand the students, but it seems that half of the protest camps are not students at all. They are mainly activists who very often use antisemitic rhetoric. Many Jewish students told me that they wouldn't even come to campus without being called a “dirty Jew.” A Jewish professor from Columbia University was not allowed into his class. They go through hell. I'm a big supporter of free speech. But smashing windows, burning Israeli flags and writing “Zionism is Nazism - go back to Europe” is not freedom of speech. There's a big difference.

STANDARD: Your film Golda celebrated its world premiere at the Berlinale in February 2023 and is now being released in cinemas. What is the significance of a film about Israel's first and only female prime minister at this point in time?

Nattiv: The film is much more important now than it was before October 7, 2023. Golda Meir was stubborn, she didn't believe anyone. She stood at the head of a young, traumatized nation just 30 years after the Holocaust. People lived in constant fear of being wiped out and they fought hard against it. Golda made history as the world's first female prime minister, but her cabinet was the definition of a dysfunctional government. In 1967, after the Six-Day War, Israel believed itself to be unbeatable. They saw themselves as the king of the Middle East. Golda Meir received a massive slap in the face for this, and Israel realized that you can't do whatever you want in the region. That you have to give back conquered land.

STANDARD: Do you see parallels with the current government?

Nattiv: Absolutely. In both cases, it was a blind government that is unwilling to talk about what lies ahead. But the difference between Golda and Bibi Netanyahu is that Golda took responsibility and resigned. She understood that the Yom Kippur War was a huge failure. Bibi, on the other hand, is glued to his chair because he is afraid of going to jail as the man responsible for that failure. He will kill more and more people, even though he has already lost the war. That's the difference between Golda, who thought of her country, and Bibi, who only thinks of Bibi. Golda was also a friend of the Americans. And she knew how to talk to them. Bibi does the opposite, he does everything to humiliate Biden.

STANDARD: Golda Meir is also a controversial figure, especially in Israel.

Nattiv: That's because she was the face of failure. She also did not accept the Mizrachis, the Jews from Asia and Africa. Nor did it deal with the Palestinian issue because it was dealing with a war that threatened its very existence. In 1973, three Arab countries attacked Israel. The Munich assassination also took place during her term of office. Yes, she was controversial, but these are the most interesting figures.

STANDARD: Golda is not a classic biopic, but a condensed chamber play. Why this form?

Nattiv: When I came on board, Golda was planned as an 80 million dollar film by Amazon. Helen Mirren had already been hired and the script was ready. It was supposed to be a classic war movie. I then asked: Where is Golda? And why is it written as if it's about the British army, not the Israeli army? When I was revising the script, Covid came. Due to the pandemic, we lost the budget, and the screenwriter and I decided that we had to bring the war into the room instead of showing it.

STANDARD: Were there any role models?

Nattiv: I was very influenced by The Last Act, G. W. Pabst's movie about Hitler. I love these closed, claustrophobic war chamber plays. Golda couldn't go to the front because she was ill. This gave me the opportunity to make a study of this old, dying woman, while the worst war Israel has ever experienced is being fought outside. The sound was also very important to me, inspired by The Conversation by Francis Ford Coppola. The fact that we were allowed to use real sound recordings from the war was an asset.

STANDARD: Smoke, birds, archive recordings - you show a lot of metaphors and hidden meanings ...

Nattiv: Thank you for noticing that. The smoke is meant to symbolize the inability to see each other. It is the smoke of war. Golda's constant cigarette smoking also symbolizes her self-hatred. She smokes herself to death. And as the state of her body deteriorates, so does the state of the country. The birds are called freedom birds in Israel. Every October they come in flocks and are interpreted as a sign of the future. Just like the birds that were used in coal mines to indicate danger. So when these birds fly into the chimney, it points to the coming apocalypse. And the shows playing on TV in the background indicate the escapism that has taken place at the same time. They are silent because Golda couldn't be part of it.

STANDARD: How did you feel about the excitement surrounding the casting of Golda Meir with Helen Mirren, a non-Jewish actress?

Nattiv: Golda's grandson said he saw his grandmother in Helen. Not physically, but mentally, in that cleverness, wisdom and cheeky manner. When I met her and she told me that she had lived in an Israeli kibbutz for a year in the 1960s, and I saw that she understood what it was like in Israel back then, I felt at ease with her. I also put her in the middle of an ensemble of Israeli actresses. That felt right. (Valerie Dirk, 4.6.2024)

Guy Nattiv is a 51-year-old Oscar-winning director from Tel Aviv. His next project “Tatami” is about an Iranian judoka and is an Israeli-Iranian co-production. He lives in the USA with his wife, actress Jaime Ray Newman, and two daughters.

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