Yonathan Shiray in "Foxtrot" at the Figge Art Museum -- October 26.
Thursday, October 27, 6:30 p.m.
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
In the Figge Art Museum's current Film at the Figge series, the Davenport venue is screening international, award-winning works that deal with death, loss, and grief in unexpected ways, and the affecting and arresting lineup continues on October 27 with Foxtrot, the internationally co-produced 2017 drama that received the Grand Jury Prize Silver Lion at the74th Venice International Film Festival.
Written and directed by Samuel Maoz. and a Hebrew co-production between Israel, Germany, France, and Switzerland, Foxtrot tells the story of Michael and Dafna Feldmann (Lior Ashkenazi and Sarah Adler), an affluent Tel Aviv couple who learn that their son Jonathan, a soldier, has died in the line of duty. The Israel Defense Forces refuse to inform the distraught parents as to where and how Jonathan died, or even if his body had been recovered. Not long afterward, however, the Feldmanns are notified - in an almost matter-of-fact manner - that there has been a mix-up, and that it was some other Jonathan who had actually been killed. An angry Michael consequently demands that the IDF allow their own Jonathan to return home, and what results in Foxtrot is a penetrating drama about family and war that, according to the New York Times, "builds into a devastating indictment of a nation, shock by shock, brutal moment by brutal moment."
After screening in the Special Presentations section at the2017 Toronto International Film Festival, Foxtrot went on to receive the Ophir Award – Israel's version of the Academy Award – for Best Film, winning an additional seven prizes in such categories as Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Cinematography. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently holds an approval rating of 94 percent based on 141 reviews, with the Web site's critical consensus reading, "Foxtrot uses topical themes to deliver a bruising sociopolitical statement that's equally effective taken simply as an absorbing, well-acted drama." But because the work depicts the Israeli Defense Forces covering up the shooting of four Arab youths, Foxtrot was denounced by Israel's Minister of Culture Miri Regev after it won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice. Regev referred to the film as "the result of self-flagellation and cooperation with the anti-Israel narrative." In response, director Maoz said, "If I criticize the place I live, I do it because I worry. I do it because I want to protect it. I do it from love."
Foxtrot will be presented in the John Deere Auditorium on October 27, admission to the 6:30 p.m. screening of the R-rated release is free, and more information on the Film at the Figge series is available by calling (563)326-7804 and visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.
