It All Begins at Sea

The title of Eitan Green’s lyrical film whose sub-title reads, Three Scenes of Childhood and a Death, announces well in advance the themes that it will be exploring: the sea as Israeli culture and society’s point of origin, death which lurks at every corner, and three pitstops along the way that suggest a journey in progress. These three pitstops are in fact three stories, or three chapters in the life of one Israeli family. In the first instalment, the family has a day out at sea when they are swept further in and nearly drown. In part two, Udi the teenage boy falls off a cliff edge during a class trip and is injured. And in the third instalment, the parents’ longing for another child goes terribly wrong when the mother gives birth to a premature baby who is now fighting for her life. Through these three milestone bookmarks in their lives, Green examines the DNA of the Israeli family and the concept of masculinity in contemporary Israeli film