House in Jerusalem (1998)
One of Amos Gitai's first films, BAIT (HOUSE), a documentary he made for Israeli television in 1978, was banned. 20 years later, Gitai returned to the scene of that documentary to make A HOUSE IN JERUSALEM. Through interviews with the current occupants, former occupants, neighbors, and passersby, he manages to capture, not just the specific nature of living in such a turbulent time, in a disputed place, but a larger vision of the city and its place in the world. Gitai interviews displaced Arabs
who poignantly wish for a more peaceful future. He interviews Israelis who express no animosity toward the Arabs, but who are prepared to live out their lives, obliviously, in homes from which the former occupants were chased away. In a telling moment, an American tourist asked by the filmmaker about the significance of the name of the street, chastises Gitai, telling him, "You don't have to look for politics in everything. Not in every street." Gitai knows better. As in many of his films, here he intelligently explores the relationship between the seemingly mundane details of our lives, and their larger meaning in the world around us.This film was screened as part of an Amos Gitai retrospective organized by New York City's Anthology Film Archives.
