VIFF 2009 | Defamation at Schema : more than ethnic

VIFF 2009 | Defamation

Defamation
Israel/Austria/USA/Denmark, 2008, 93min
DIR Yoav Shamir

Just what does it mean to be anti-Semitic? Is anti-Semitism still as urgent, and wide-spread a problem around the world as it once was? These are among the many questions Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir seeks to answer in this documentary. The topic is, to say the least, sensitive - can anyone argue that anti-Semitism is blown out of proportion without being accused of racism? Shamir analyzes the situation in a manner that is both startling and enlightening to anyone unfamiliar with the subject. The film opens with an interview with Shamir's own Jewish grandmother as she expresses views that would have political correctness fanatics frothing at the mouth, but we learn that it is a common, however diluted, viewpoint of many as the film progresses.

The film follows a variety of characters in Israel, the US and Europe, including Abe Foxman, head of the powerful American Anti-Defamation League, who travels the world spreading the "good word" while, incidentally, raising massive funds for the ADL. Shamir also documents a group of Israeli high school students travelling to Auschwitz, who believe passionately that everyone in the world hates them and is anti-Semitic. The teens are highly conscious of the supposed international hatred directed to them. In one scene two Israeli teen girls attempt to chat with three elderly Polish men; the men speak in Polish about how strange the girls' language is and the girls, thinking the elderly men are calling them "bitches", gasp in outrage and run away. In another scene, two teens confess they are too afraid to leave their hotel rooms at night for fear of being attacked. It is scenes like these that give chilling insight into a culture that Shamir claims is too preoccupied with the hulking memory of the Holocaust and with martyrdom in general. He doesn't spare Jews outside Israel though; Shamir also sets his gaze on the zealousness of the Anti-Defamation League and their right-wing political agenda to smother any and all criticism of Israel. Is the ADL really a champion of the oppressed, Shamir asks, or simply a group of politically correct, ill-informed zealots made up of secular Jews trying to claim back their Jewish identity?

Defamation is expertly filmed, certainly controversial, and definitely thought-provoking. It asks hard questions that many will not feel comfortable answering, let alone contemplating. But Shamir presents a logical and objective analysis that should open a discussion that needs to be had. Highly recommended.

Thur. Oct. 1, 1:50pm, Empire Granville
Sun. Oct. 4, 9:15pm, Ridge
Mon. Oct. 5, 9:45pm, Empire Granville