High Maintenance
Image by Rotem Azulay
דני קרוון | Barak Heymann | Israel, 2020 | Hebrew, English (English subtitles) | Documentary | 66m | DCP | IMDB | Contact: Go2Films | Festival marketing sample: JFF 2019 | DocuShuk
Description: “My art is political.” declares Dani Karavan in an early scene. To these who claim that politics and art do not go together he has one word: “Guernica”. When Barak Heymann admits ignorance of Picasso’s 1937 anti-war painting, Karavan turns in disgust to his daughter: “Hava… Noa… Tammy, let’s go. The guy doesn’t know what Guernica is.”
This vignette serves to introduce us to the amusingly irritable personality of one of Israel’s greatest artists while allowing general audiences to identify with the humbled filmmaker. Karavan’s confusion about the name of his daughter also foretells the artist’s dark realisation. As he approaches his nineties, his memory is beginning to fail him.
In the course of the hour that follows, Heymann joins Karavan at sites of his Israeli and European works: dramatic monuments and memorials that merge into their environment. (It is now too difficult for him to travel to Korea and Japan to revisit some of his other installations.) While Heymann’s camerawork captures their elegance and beauty, Karavan is often frustrated by their state of disrepair. Occasionally he engages with visitors: graciously with admirers, less so with critics. One friend and fan, German director Wim Wenders, is particularly appreciative. More recently he has been commissioned to design a memorial for Poland’s righteous gentiles. As he consults historians and journalists who are concerned that this may serve the right wing Polish government’s effort to whitewash the nation’s complicity in the holocaust, doubts emerge. At a Tel Aviv demonstration, he denounces the 2018 Nation State bill. We join him on numerous visits to medical specialists: apparently a favourite pastime.
Merits: Barak Heymann, whose recent affectionate and inspiring portrait of Israeli activist politician Dov Khenin, Comrade Dov, does not disappoint. While art documentaries generally have a limited appeal, his new film, with its humour, pathos, charm and sweeping visuals will delight a much larger audience.
Rating: Strong language.
Programming considerations: An audience pleaser with much broader appeal than the theme suggests.