Meitel Zvieli presents a moving and gripping look at 7 October from the unique perspective of an Israeli zoo
The ‘star’ of this wonderfully unexpected film – and Jerusalem Biblical Zoo – is an aging rhinoceros. Shalom acquired his richly symbolic name, meaning 'peace', because he was born on the very day in 1979 when Israel signed its historic treaty with Egypt. His keepers, both Jewish and Arab, adore him and are distraught that he has been injured by a neighbouring gnu, is visibly weakening and now needs to be put down.
Though we hear snatches of news bulletins about the demonstrations against Netanyahu’s plans to curtail the power of the Supreme Court, almost half of Meitel Zvieli’s documentary is devoted to a mini-drama that could take place in a zoo anywhere in the world. Rhinos are hardly the cuddliest of creatures, but it's touching to see the keepers both moved to tears and embarrassed to be caught crying on camera. The episode ends with a poignantly surreal image of the dead Shalom hoisted up by a crane and silhouetted against the sky like a chess piece.
But this is Israel and even the charmingly shabby zoo cannot escape the fall-out from 7 October and subsequent Gaza war. With the night sky lit up by rockets, the animals are restless and on the prowl. The keepers ask each other whether their children’s schools have shelters. The few visitors are greeted by an announcement that starts by telling them what to do in the event of a missile attack and ends with "Happy Passover!" When a new young rhino called Eno arrives from France, the directors of the zoo promptly rename him Idan, after a well-known Israeli singer who was wounded fighting in Gaza.
Events obviously affect the keepers in different ways. A Jewish member of staff phones his children to tell them that their mother is on reserve duty and they must go and stay with their grandmother. An Arab member describes a "very weird", low-key Ramadan and a popular coffee shop that's now deserted. Another Jewish keeper argues that people and even animals such as Eno should be allowed to keep their original names, recalling his mother’s anger when she arrived in Israel from Iraq as a child and was told she had to change her Arabic name Dalal to Dahlia.
The zoo, in other words, turns out to be a strange and haunting microcosm of the tensions and divisions within Israel as a whole. It would be hard to think of a more unusual and oblique portrait of a nation at war. But then training a unique lens on a subject has become Zvieli's MO. She was head of research on Ari Folman’s animated documentary Waltz with Bashir, wrote a mini-series about Jews and Arabs in low-league Israeli football and directed The Camera of Doctor Morris, an intmate family portrait told through 8mm film. Shalom may also be an oddity, but it’s an exceptionally compelling one.
By Matthew Reisz
Shalom screens Saturday 14 November as part of the UK Jewish Film Festival. 8pm. £30. Curzon Mayfair, London, W1J 7TY. ukjewishfilm.org