A. Yehoshua - The Retrospective

For this was Trigano’s vision: everyone who receives therapeutic care can and must become a caregiver. And as this simplistic, seemingly unfounded idea circles in scenic waves of black and white, crafted long ago by a young director, the original title of the film flashes in Moses’ memory, and he whispers it to his companion.

THE FILM’S DIRECTOR sits in the last row, with de Viola beside him in the aisle seat; this way it won’t be hard for him to get to the stage at the end of the screening. Meanwhile, his heart beats faster at the sight of his mother, her voice faintly audible under the Spanish dubbing. She is giving instructions to the new lodger, who unpacks her suitcase in Moses’ childhood room and emerges in a lightweight shirt and shorts from a bygone era — very short and baggy, with an elastic waistband. She had arrived in Jerusalem only an hour ago, at the invitation of a young man who raised her hopes, and now, weary and dejected, she wields a mop and pail in the home of a sick old lady.

The two converse incomprehensibly, and the director notes that even at the dawn of his career, he could create a natural flow of dialogue. The Spanish dubbing is so sophisticated that it almost seems not to be the work of actors in a sound studio but that the Israelis had been hypnotized to speak another language. No wonder the audience feels at home with the foreign characters, and little Jerusalem, in the black-and-white of the 1960s, is perceived in the province of Galicia as a familiar and likable city.

Moses recalls that this early film was awarded a prize by the city of Jerusalem, but the prize didn’t help draw an audience, and after two weeks in the theater, it had to cede its place to a hard-hitting action movie. His father, who was distressed to see his wife as an actress, even more so to see her as an old lady with white hair, was unabashedly delighted that the film was no longer playing, but his mother was upset that not everyone she knew had seen her. She, who never shied from self-criticism, had become a fan of her fictional character, and repeatedly praised her son for the quality of his direction, perhaps to hint she was ready for another role.

Even had he wanted to find her another part in later films, it was not possible. Two years after the filming, his mother was diagnosed with the illness that forced her to struggle in reality and not just in the imagination of a writer or director. And now, in the small screening room of a former military barracks, as he watches her resurrection of sorts, so long after her death — a brief resurrection, since she is present in the film only through the first half — he cannot contain himself, and in a whisper he turns to the priest on his right: “There, that one… the old woman, she was my mother.” The director of the archive already knows — someone has told him, or he figured it out from the names of the actors — and he smiles and nods with approval at the audacious choice, and redirects Moses’ attention to a strange silhouette that appears on the right side of the screen — a flaw that escaped the film’s editor. A character unconnected to the plot is there, behind a curtain, and the cameraman did not notice the invader of the frame. Only after the film’s conversion to a sharper digital format is his father revealed, hiding behind the curtain to make sure that even as a film director, his son took pains to honor his mother.

“You really don’t remember what you talked about?” Moses quietly challenges his companion, who is fascinated by what she is saying, even if she doesn’t understand a word. Indeed, how quickly dialogue is erased from memory, and only random images remain, such as the young lodger leaning gracefully on a broom handle, her bare foot carelessly brushing its bristles. Moses wonders if it was inexperience that led him in his early days as director to depend excessively on the power of spoken language, unfazed by the likelihood that overlong dialogue with no action would tire viewers and sap their empathy. Nonetheless, all around him are foreigners sitting attentively, murmuring pleasure, without the slightest idea where the plot will take them.

“You really don’t remember what you said to her?” Moses persists in asking the actress, whose eyes sadly glisten, longing for lost youth. She shrugs, for she has acted in so many films and spoken so much dialogue, she says, who can remember. And yet, there is something she does recall. “In a minute you’ll see how I cook a meal for this old woman, also known as your mother. That’s what I do remember from this pitiful movie.”

Here, then, is the lodger in the kitchen, cutting vegetables, slicing bread, frying an egg, which looks like a goldfish, owing to an error in lighting. Can it be, thinks Moses with a chuckle, that he already had the yen to poke the camera into pots and pans, or was it the cinematographer’s idea?

The film unfolds at a sluggish pace, promising no dramatic developments yet able to sustain tension in the small hall. Is it the absence of the promise that commands continued attention? The old woman, listless and frail, eats the meal with trembling hands. When she drops her fork, she is too feeble to retrieve it from the floor, and the girl has to pick it up and rinse it off. This does not seem to be temporary weakness, and yet, after the young lodger clears the table, washes the dishes, and gets permission from the landlady to go to her room — where for a sweet second of screen time she appears in the nude — a metamorphosis takes place in the living room. The landlady rises energetically from her armchair, changes her clothes, puts on makeup, takes a basket and a cane, and, in keeping with Trigano’s vision, switches from suffering invalid to efficient caregiver. She makes her way through a crowded market, a slow-moving yet confident old woman, tracked with deep respect by the camera. She walks purposefully from stall to stall, bargaining with vendors and selecting bread, eggs, and vegetables, even a cut of red meat, and then she heads down a lonesome alley to an old house. She climbs narrow winding stairs to a peeling door with no name, a door that admits her again into that same house, his parents’ house, a place only Moses can identify, for through the skills of the cinematographer and set designer it has now become a different house, with no courtyard or garden, a dingy and neglected house with broken furniture and torn rugs, the residence of a big-boned woman confined to a wheelchair, waiting for help.

“Matilda… I can’t believe it!” Ruth laughs.

And the laughter extends, like a fishing line, into the well of time, and out comes a colorful, almost mythological character of indeterminate age and identity, a distant relative of Trigano’s, also imported from that immigrant town in the desert, who turned out to be a natural comedienne. Moses’ mother, a refined and cultured old woman, approaches her tentatively and carefully lays the basket of groceries in front of her rickety wheelchair, apparently on loan from a nearby old-age home, and in the dark hall the filmmaker hangs his head with embarrassment over what he has created, though after many years of experience in gauging audience reactions, he can see that his message, puerile but humane, retains its grip.

Not in a sudden recollection but simply by looking at the flow of images on the screen, he discovers that as a fledgling director, faithful to the script, he did not spare his mother the indignity of feeding the invalid and cleaning her, washing her underwear in the sink, and there is no way of knowing if these actions were in the script or added by the director’s inspiration. And perhaps also because he doesn’t understand a word of the dialogue that flows cheerfully between his mother and the woman in her care, his eyes mist over and he chokes up; it is hard to bear his mother’s humiliation. And like his father, who did not survive long after the death of his wife, he feels great compassion for the ghost of his mother, who plays her role with such devotion, and he rises from his seat. I’ll be right back, he reassures the director of the archive, and hurries for the exit.