1992. In Wuppertal, in Germany, two skinheads killed a man who claimed to be Jewish. Amos Gitai questions the witnesses, the residents, and the protagonists of the trial. "It is not a film that is designed to shock, as a journalistic report on neo-Nazis would have. In the film, we do not see any picture of the victim, we do not learn anything about him, only his name. Gitai does not attempt to interview the skinheads, or to observe them from afar. The murderers and their victim are "outside" the film - this very absence creates panic. This refusal to let us look straight at them becomes progressively the essential metaphor of what the film is about. Gitai talks with the public prosecutor, the lawyers of the accused, the relatives of the bar owner, the residents: those who have heard of the incident, and those who have not. Those who are involved and those who are not, those who are afraid to speak and those who want to. Like these young people at a fair, who express their hatred towards foreigners living in Germany and are proud of having a friend called Mustafa, whom we see with them, and who joins in the conversation. Gitai does not try to "find a meaning" to the incident-at least, not directly. His film describes the process of a disappearance. In a certain way, the more we listen and the more we look, the more the event is removed from time and makes us see the History that it represents." Uri Klein, "The Man Who Wanted to Be Elvis Murdered A Man Who Maybe Was A Jew", Ha'aretz, November, 13, 1993 |