Ghost Story and Group Therapy


Itay Tiran in "Forgiveness," directed by Udi Aloni.


Jewish mental patients and murdered Palestinians unite to solve the problems of the Middle East in “Forgiveness,” a mystifying mishmash of ghost story and group therapy.

Flashing backward, forward, up and down, the movie’s bewildering plot follows David (Itay Tiran), a young Israeli-American with unresolved identity issues. To spite his famous father (Michael Sarne), David enlists in the Israeli Army, where a tragic incident leaves him virtually catatonic. Committed to a mental hospital on the site of a Jewish massacre of a Palestinian village, David bounces between a drug that promises to erase the past and another patient (Moni Moshonov) who urges him to discuss it with the skeletons the inmates are busily exhuming.

As dream sequences collide with musical theater, and the agitated shade of a dead girl reappears as the daughter of David’s unlikely Palestinian lover, “Forgiveness” juggles a perplexing number of themes, philosophies and aesthetics. Caught in an endless loop of repressed memories and spiritual aphorisms, the screenplay (by Paul Hond and Udi Aloni, who also directs) disdains to say once what it can repeat several times. The message may be clear — suppress the past at your peril — but the execution is a mess. As for the line-dancing soldiers, your guess is as good as mine.

FORGIVENESS

Directed by Udi Aloni; written (in English, Hebrew and Arabic, with English subtitles) by Mr. Aloni and Paul Hond, based on the book by Mr. Aloni; director of photography, Amnon Zalait; edited by Galia Gill Moors; music by Tamir Muskat; production designers, Kuly Sander and Tommaso Ortino; produced by David Silber, Lemore Syvan and Mr. Aloni; released by International Film Circuit. At the Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. This film is not rated.



WITH: Itay Tiran (David), Clara Khoury (Lila), Moni Moshonov (Muselmann), Makram Khoury (Dr. Isaac Shemesh), Tamara Mansour (Amal/Ghost/Girl) and Michael Sarne (Henry Adler).

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so long and thank for the good time in VF