Director: Amos Gitai
Cast: Simona Benyamini, Mohammed Bakri, Juliano Merr, Zare Vartanian, Schmuel Wolf, David Cohen, Sarah Cohen, Rim Bani
Israel, Austria, UK; 97’, 1985, color
Hebrew with Turkish subtitles
Designed as an immense "tableau vivant", the film tells the Old Testament story of Esther, who does not know she is Jewish when she is chosen by King Ashasuerus as his wife. Upon discovering a plot against her people, she manages to save them. Using this myth of survival and resistance, Amos Gitai also narrates the revengeful exterminations perpetrated by the Jews against their enemies. This violence resonates with current events, creating a parallel underscored by the ruins of Wadi Salib, where Gitai filmed the story. This is the first part in a trilogy that also comprises Berlin Jerusalem and Golem, the Spirit of Exile.
You try to remember the future. A bird painted on the ceramic panel in a historical palace has found its place on the wall. The tiles of a church and a mosque have been painted on canvas. The pattern of a centuries-old ceramic plate appears before you on a velvet curtain.
I remembered a game as I was waiting in the passenger lounge for the ferry to arrive just a few minutes ago. A game we used to play at home when I was young, in my country that is very far away from here, a relic from the distant past; I don’t even remember how we used to play it. The kind of game that makes me feel a thousand times lonelier than I already am among the crowd waiting to get on the ferry.
Pera Museum, in collaboration with Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), is one of the main venues for this year’s 15th Istanbul Biennial from 16 September to 12 November 2017.
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