Free Zone (2005)

Director:

Amos Gitai

Writers:

Amos Gitai
Marie-Jose Sanselme

Release Date:

7 April 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

Two women embark on a road trip after they are brought together by circumstance. Rebecca (Portman) flees her hotel after a fight with her mother-in-law (Maura) and hails a taxi driven by Hanna (Lazlo).

Plot Keywords:

American | Palestinian | Jordan | Taxi | Israeli

Awards:

1 win & 6 nominations

Cast

Natalie Portman	...	Rebecca
Hana Laszlo	...	Hanna Ben Moshe (as Hanna Laszlo)
Hiam Abbass	...	Leila
Carmen Maura	...	Mrs. Breitberg
Makram Khoury	...	Samir aka "The American"
Aki Avni	...	Julio
Uri Klauzner	...	Moshe Ben Moshe
Liron Levo	...	Border Security
Tomer Russo	...	Border Security
Adnan Tarabshi	...	Petrol Station Owner
Shredi Jabarin	...	Walid (as Shredy Gabarin)
Kobi Lieber	...	Radio Narrator (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tinkerbell	...	Bit part (uncredited)

Directed by
Amos Gitai

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Amos Gitai
Marie-Jose Sanselme		(as Marie José Sanselme)

Produced by
Nicolas Blanc	....	co-producer: Agat Films & Cie
Yona Blumenthal	....	co-producer: Yos Satellite
Rémi Burah	....	co-producer: Arte France Cin&eacute0ma
Eliane Du Bois	....	co-producer: Cineart
Leon Ederi	....	co-producer: United King
Moshe Edery	....	co-producer: United King (as Moshe Ederi)
Amos Gitai	....	co-producer: Agav Hafakot
Robert Guédiguian	....	co-producer: Agat Films & Cie
Jean Labadie	....	co-producer: Bac Films
Genevieve Lemal	....	co-producer: Scope Invest
Nir Lempert	....	co-producer: Israel Eser
Gadi Levy	....	line producer
David Lipkind	....	co-producer: Israel Film Fund
Alexandre Lippens	....	co-producer: Scope Invest
Josetco Moreno	....	co-producer: Giolem
Patrick Quinet	....	co-producer: Artemis Production
Michel Reilhac	....	co-producer: Arte France Cin&eacute0ma
Katriel Schori	....	co-producer: Israel Film Fund (as Catri Schori)
Tal Shaked	....	co-producer: Israel Eser
Michael Tapuah	....	co-producer: Hamon Hafakot
Michael Tapuah	....	producer
Laurent Truchot	....	co-producer: Agav Films
Laurent Truchot	....	producer
Pedro Zaratiegui	....	co-producer: Golem
Arlette Zylberberg	....	co-producer: RTFB Télévision Belge

Cinematography by
Laurent Brunet

Film Editing by
Yann Dedet
Isabelle Ingold

Casting by
Ilan Moscovitch

Art Direction by
Miguel Markin

Costume Design by
Miguel Markin
Aline Stern

Makeup Department
Ziv Katanov	....	makeup artist
Miguel Markin	....	makeup artist
Aline Stern	....	makeup artist

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Shuli Kalderon	....	second assistant director
Ilan Moscovitch	....	first assistant director
Haim Rinski	....	first assistant director (as Haim Rinsky)
Haim Rinski	....	second assistant director (as Haim Rinsky)
Tamir Naber	....	second assistant director: second unit (uncredited)

Art Department
Dani Avshalom	....	props
Yoav Sinai	....	set dresser
Ilan Moscovitch	....	artistic advisor (uncredited)

Sound Department
Frank Ceven	....	assistant foley artist (as Franck Ceven)
Pascal Chauvin	....	foley artist
Alex Claude	....	sound designer
Séverin Favriau	....	sound mixing assistant
Kobi Horowitz	....	adr engineer
Michel Kharat	....	sound designer
Michel Kharat	....	sound engineer
Michel Kharat	....	sound re-recording mixer
John Purcell	....	dialogue editor
Oren Raviv	....	boom operator
Michael Reuter	....	adr coordinator
Gal Sagi	....	sound effects editor
Ingrid Simon	....	sound mixing assistant
Marcus Sujata	....	adr engineer
Stéphane Thiébaut	....	sound re-recording mixer
Philippe Charbonnel	....	sound recordist (uncredited)
Quentin Collette	....	sound recordist (uncredited)

Special Effects by
Pini Klavir	....	special effects

Camera and Electrical Department
Gidon Albert	....	gaffer
Ofer Almog	....	key grip
Haim Asias	....	Steadicam operator
Miki Berdougo	....	gaffer (as Miki Berdugo)
Mordi Boaz	....	grip
Adi Borkin	....	head gaffer
Laurent Brunet	....	Steadicam operator
Shai Jajo	....	gaffer (as Shay Jago)
Ziv Koren	....	still photographer
Amnon Nachumovski	....	clapper loader
Daniel Solomon	....	gaffer
Jean-Paul Toraille	....	camera assistant
Gaby Weismann	....	camera assistant

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Natali Kanevtsky	....	wardrobe

Editorial Department
Dirk Dejonghe	....	color laboratory: Dejonghe
Pierre Huot	....	post-production
Dirk Lauwereins	....	color laboratory: Dejonghe
Stephane Quinet	....	post-production (as Stephan Quinet)
Dirk Vandewalle	....	grader

Transportation Department
Avi Cohen	....	transportation
Ronen Dima	....	transportation
Eli Mualem	....	transportation
Ofer Netzer	....	transportation
Yosi Yaari	....	transportation

Other crew
Marc Bordure	....	administrator
Gadi Buksanbaum	....	security
Gaëtan David	....	administrator
Iftach Gabay	....	location manager
Adir Haruvi	....	making-of
Frédérique Larmagnac	....	administrator
Gadi Levy	....	location manager
Silvére Moreau	....	international sales: Bac Films nternational
Dalit Nemir	....	assistant to director (as Dalit Nemirovsky)
Raam Shaul	....	security
Olga Sitovotsky	....	assistant to director
Olga Sitovotsky	....	continuity
Lee Tal	....	coordinator
Ayelet Tamari	....	researcher
Michal Wintroib	....	coordinator
Richard Lormand	....	publicist: international (uncredited)

Thanks
Efratia Gitai	....	special thanks
Arthur Miller	....	special thanks
Munio Weinraub-Gitai	....	special thanks

Production Companies

• Agat Films & Cie
• Agav Films
• Artémis
• Bac Films
• Canal+
• Cinéart
• Golem Distribución
• Radio Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF)
• SCOPE Invest
• TPS Star
• United King Films
• Yes-DBD Satellite Services
• Yisrael Esser Channel
• arte France Cinéma

Distributors

• Bac Films International (2005) (worldwide) (theatrical)
• Bac Films (2005) (France) (theatrical)
• Filmcoopi Zürich (2005-2006) (Switzerland) (theatrical)
• Mars Production (2007) (Turkey) (theatrical)
• New Yorker Films (2006) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• MegaCom Film (MCF) (2006) (Yugoslavia) (all media)

Other Companies

• Christian Dior  make-up
• Cinematip  sound editing rooms
• Color By Dejonghe  color laboratory (as Jejonghe)
• Doron Reuveni  insurance
• Elektrofilm  adr studio
• Kodak  raw stock
• Les Audis Jackson  foley studio (as 'Jackson Les Audis')
• Movie Mobile  camera and lighting rental
• Studio l'Équipe  sound mixing facility
• TSF  camera and lighting rental

Also Known As:

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

Israel | Belgium | France | Spain

Language:

English | Hebrew | Arabic | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR | Stereo

Certification:

Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Brazil:12 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Free Zone, Jordan

Company:

Agat Films & Cie

Trivia:

A crowd of ultra-orthodox Jewish worshippers confronted Natalie Portman and her co-star Aki Avni, objecting to the couple kissing during the filming of a scene beside Jerusalem's Western Wall. The crowd charged and shouted "Immoral, immoral!" Police asked the actors to leave and return later, and they agreed.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When the vehicle is just approaching the border crossing near the end of the film (1:23:00 on the DVD) we can see the silhouette of someone wearing a baseball cap moving about in the back of the vehicle.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Rebecca:[after prolonged sitting in car crying] Can we go? Can we leave this place? Please!
Hanna:Where to?
Rebecca:I don't know. Let's get out of here, please.

Soundtrack:

Had Gadia

Sublime

Motion Pictures are not one, but many genres. There are films poised solely to entertain, others to politicize, and yet others are art.

FREE ZONE is art in a film format. Just as most art, it relies more on senses, feelings, aesthetics, and perceptions. Unfortunately, for the unimaginative and unengaged, it can sometimes be unintelligible.

The film begins with a very long close-up shot of a beautiful young woman (Natalie Portman) copiously crying in the back seat of a car, to the Jewish children's rhyme "Had Gadia". The powerful arrangement in crescendos adds pathos to the girl's exteriorization of heart-felt anguish, and the seamlessly-never-ending stories of increasing consequences and characters (sung in Hebrew but appropriately subtitled) add confusion and exasperation. The sense of utter discomfiture is only compounded by the audience's utmost ignorance of the character, her surroundings, and her motivations. Her despair is our despair, but we, much as she also seems, are lost.

Slowly we learn she is parked by the Kotel, or Wailing Wall, in Jerusalem. We also learn she has just fought with her would-be mother-in-law and broken off her engagement to her Spanish-Israeli fiancé. Thus her personal loss becomes the middle-eastern mourning, and her very personal suffering symbolizes the tears and hopelessness of whole peoples and an entire land.

Immediately one is faced with a choice. To watch the rest of the movie as a narrative, or to perceive the allegory it propounds. To choose the first is to misunderstand it entirely, and miss on the powerful images and senses.

Rebecca (Natalie Portman) is an American who struggles aimlessly through life without a clear sense of identity. Her father is Jewish, but she carries little or no pride in her heritage, ignorant even of her status as a Jew (or not). She feels uneasy in her American home, and in a search for an identity that suits her, she acquires (and loses) a fiancé and a home in Israel. How she reacts to the landscape (so extensively shot, in exquisite details) and to the people (diverse, albeit through quick and superficial contacts) symbolizes the author's perception of the American (as in people or nation) own sense of identity and appreciation of the Middle East.

She joins Hannah (Hanna Laslo), a Russian-Israeli middle-aged woman whose life stories unfold piecemeal as a symbolical-historical window on the Israeli nation, on a trip to the Jordanian free trade zone on a mission for personal and familial financial salvation. Her determination and her biases (often even callousness) are obviously shaped by her pressing needs and her clear life trajectory, as evidenced by the unusually thorough (as opposed to the other characters) exposition of her past. Her reactions to her American travel mate, the obstacles in her quest, and the eventual Palestinian they meet clearly embody the Israeli national persona, dreams, fears, and strengths.

The Palestinian our heroes meet is Leila (Hiam Abbass), whose family present as Hannah's possible salvation (as in the money her husband owes her) or damnation (as in the fall-out from the misguided actions of her rebellious and contentious son). Torn between her loyalties to her own family and her duties toward this Jewish woman, she joins the other women in their quest for redemption.

The women allegorize their respective nations. And yet, their struggles are very personal and transcend national identities and interests. The combination of the three, and how they interact amongst themselves to work out their individual travails, masterfully conveys the powerful emotions in the confluence of tribes, nations, countries, and religions in this most convoluted region. The attention to the national frontiers (what role they play in segregating these peoples) juxtaposed to the more promiscuous exchange amongst the actual peoples (their representational counterparts in the characters) is quite fascinating.

The narrative is non linear, relying mostly on feelings and emotions. The filmography is untraditional (a lot of hand-held camera movements, as if the audience is privy to the story, watching a family road trip video) and experimental (long and confusing, yet dramatic, layering of images and back-plots, creating familiarity with back stories, yet maintaining distance thru the lack of clear focus or images). The plot is mostly allegorical, therefore characters are not really introduced and developed as they are thrust upon the audience (with the implication that one already knows them, or who they represent), played out in short pericopes and less of an overarching story.

The film is beautiful and insightful. If you prefer mass produced Hollywoodean one-size-fit-all entertainment, this is not the movie for you.