Michael Moshonov as Eli and Oshrat Ingadashet as Iris in a scene from "America." (Photo courtesy of Menemsha Films).
The backdrops are pristine, the people brooding and haunted. The films of Ofir Raul Graizer introduce viewers to attractive loners who are navigating devastating loss. They come together in ways that enhance and deepen the way they see the world, all while acknowledging that deep down, people never change, not really. They adapt, whether the road they travel ends in fulfillment, heartbreak, or more often than not, a bittersweet combination of both.
Graizer, an Israeli filmmaker based in Berlin, excels in making elegantly crafted, character-driven melodramas, mixing elements from European and Middle Eastern cinemas with the flair of a fusion chef. Call his movies uplifting downers. “America,” his most recent feature, shares the dense narrative and psychologically knotty ambiguity of its better known predecessor, “The Cakemaker,” but with a far more saturated color palette. After circling the globe for over a year, including a stop at the 2023 Miami Jewish Film Festival, “America” is finally opening across the U.S. this summer.
Ofri Biterman as Yotam, Oshrat Ingadashet as Iris and Michael Moshonov as Eli in a scene from "America." (Photo courtesy of Menemsha Films).
The film's title, with its evocation of Western Hemisphere prosperity and opportunity, suggests a depiction of the nation from an outsider's perspective, but that's not what Graizer is after. In fact, the film spends just over six minutes on this side of the pond. Rather, the America in “America” represents escape, a flight to safety, away from a past filled with painful memories. Chicago is where Ilai Cross (Michael Moshonov) wound up. The Israeli immigrant is a beloved swim instructor, teaching children to lose their fear of the water with the same patience that Graizer displays toward his characters.
A phone call from overseas shatters the peace he had built and maintained for years in the Midwest. His father? Dead for weeks of a heart attack. Ilai? That's an alias. Ilai is actually the name Eli Greenberg gave himself to start a new life. Reluctantly, he boards the 15-hour flight to Tel Aviv to deal with the house his father left him. Old faces come out of the woodwork, including Yotam (Ofri Biterman), the childhood friend he left behind. There is also a new face: Iris (Oshrat Ingadashet), Yotam's fiancée, a gifted florist from Ethiopia.
Michael Moshonov as Eli and Ofri Biterman as Yotam in a scene from "America." (Photo courtesy of Menemsha Films)
What sets the wheels in motion here is a day trip Eli and Yotam make to the secluded creek they used to frequent back when they were inseparable. There's an unspoken bond here, Graizer is whispering in your ear, and whatever happened in this hidden oasis has clearly stayed there. When he steals a glance at a napping Eli, Yotam appears to look back fondly at a possible romantic past between them. But Graizer stops there, and he leaves that tantalizing possibility lingering in the air.
“America” then takes a sharp turn into a sudden calamity that will bring Eli, Iris and Yotam closer in ways none of them could have predicted. A medical emergency turns into a prolonged ordeal with an uncertain feature, and what begins as a business proposition that brings Iris' green thumb to the fore blossoms into so much more. If this foray into the ways people enter and leave each other's lives begins to ring a bell, that's because there are echoes here of Pedro Almodóvar's body of work in general and his dueling-comas potboiler “Talk to Her” in particular.
Michael Moshonov as Eli and Oshrat Ingadashet as Iris in a scene from "America." (Photo courtesy of Menemsha Films)
But the ways in which withdrawn, wary people like Iris and Eli, who have erected fortresses around themselves, gradually open up are all Graizer's doing. As the characters discover they share a history of escaping trauma, “America” starts feeling more and more like that novel that may have initially felt intimidating but has sucked you right in all the same. At once expansive and intimate, it depicts Israel's panoramic landscapes as extensions of the streams and valleys inside its characters' psyches. It's thrilling to see Graizer peel back the layers and delve into what makes Eli and Iris tick, these strangers who are thrust together by a cruel twist of fate, who bond over their similar demons, until they are strangers no more.
The characters are so transfixing in their complexities and contradictions that one starts hoping Graizer doesn't go overboard when it comes time to dole out their secrets, and if “America” has an Achilles heel, it's in how mechanical some of its exposition dumps feel. One may argue that the soulful, tightly wound Eli, the resilient, quietly perceptive Iris, and the warm and empathetic Yotam don't need the footnotes providing background information. The film's portrayal of the role that violence has played in these people's lives, the devastating toll it's taken, is much more powerfully conveyed by the sight of an empty room where something unspeakable happened than by an eleventh-hour reveal.
Thore Joris Harchut as Young Eli and Rowen Bloom Sargent as Young Yotam in a scene from "America." (Photo courtesy of Menemsha Films)
But these misgivings are fairly minor. They're offset by Graizer's command of the medium, both in the depth of his characters and how he employs the film's production values, from Omri Aloni's resplendent widescreen vistas to yet another lush and evocative score by French composer Dominique Charpentier. It all comes together with tactile vibrancy.
“America” unfolds over several years, but it feels as if you've known its main characters for much longer. Moshonov, who skillfully oscillates between tenderness, restraint and imploding rage, is the MVP here, but a second viewing has made me appreciate the expertly calibrated stillness that Ingadashet and Biterman bring to the table. Seeing these three grapple with seemingly insurmountable circumstances, then revel in those hard-earned comfortable silences, drives home the majesty of this film, a fully felt portrait of the impermanence of life.
Oshrat Ingadashet as Iris in a scene from "America." (Photo courtesy of Menemsha Films)
“America” won the Critics Prize at the 2023 Miami Jewish Film Festival. It is now showing at the AMC Aventura and Movies of Delray.
