Shivrei Tmunot Yerushalaïm
Israel,
1997, 358 min
Shown in 1998
CREDITS
- dir
-
Ron Havilio
- prod
-
Ron Havilio, Jacqueline Havilio
- scr
-
Ron Havilio
- cam
-
Ron Havilio
- editor
-
Tor Ben-Mayor, Yael Perlov
- source
-
Ron Havilio, Simtat Hogivah 4, Ein Karem, Jerusalem 95744, Israel. FAX: 972-2-643-1726
OTHER
Presented in two three-hour cycles, Fragments * Jerusalem is an epic, lyrical interweaving of one man’s family history with the history of a city from Biblical times to the present. Documentarian Ron Havilio spent over ten years accumulating artifacts and interviews and combining home movies, postcards, archival materials, anecdotes, paintings and photographs so that the resulting film is as much about cinema examining its own language as it is about his forefathers or Jerusalem. Constantly shifting between past and present, Havilio depicts a profoundly anachronistic city where ancient history constantly informs and affects modern life. Cycle One opens with Havilio exploring the Mamila district (which was once the city center), touring the Old City and exploring artistic depictions of Jerusalem from the nineteenth century. The second cycle begins with the funeral of Havilio’s paternal grandmother and traces the family lineage through wars, riots, pogroms and terrorist attacks; it ends with the filmmaker’s visits to congregations of different faiths. Although a secularist himself, Havilio has invented his own form of prayer, or study, through cinema, one in which he meditates on the pursuit of lasting human happiness and the cyclical nature of life. The film’s final image of a Ferris wheel reinforces this notion, but Havilio also feels the circle is not yet complete: He is already planning a third cycle, this one exploring Jerusalem in the mid-nineteenth century.
FACTOID #65
The combined running time for all the films in the Festival is approximately 310,000 minutes. Or to put it another way, 5,167 hours. That’s about 215 days of viewing, 24 hours a day, with no breaks.
