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TIME OF FAVOR Send This Review to a Friend
"Time of Favor," which opened the 2001 Israeli Film Festival in New York, is one of the better films to emerge from Israel in recent years. The drama, written and directed by Joseph Cedar, deals melodramatically with a plan by right-wing zealots in the military to blow up a mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by going in through tunnels to set off explosives.
The film could do without its emphasis on a romantic entanglement, needed more for plot than for drama. This is the sort of film that has its most power in the action plans and counter-maneuvers that lead up to the climax. Once that aspect gets going the film picks up strength, which is also gained from tackling the controversial rightist elements in the country.
Given the current state of warfare between Israelis and Palestinians and political and religious differences within Israel, "Time of Favor" takes on a special interest beyond the film's artistic level, and it is certainly capable of sparking controversy, depending on one's viewpoint. All the more reason for seeing it.
Assi Dayan, the actor who is also the son of Israel's legendary military commander Moshe Dayan, plays orthodox Rabbi Meltzer, whose militant preaching has an influence on Menachem (Aki Avni), an army officer who lives in the West Bank settlement run by the rabbi. Meltzer insists that Jews have the right to rule the disputed Temple Mount. This portion of the story and its consequences are what makes the film absorbing. But the drama is derailed by the romantic subplot involving the love between Menachem and the rabbi's daughter Michal, whom the rabbi has promised to Pini (Edan Alterman), Menachem's best friend. That part of the story, while fueling the plot, smacks of cliché. A Kino International release.
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