Avenge But One of My Two Eyes

The Israeli film maker and peace activist Avi Mograbi is well-known for his provocative documentaries that attack the official policies of Israel. His latest film essay, Avenge But One of My Two Eyes, is less humorous than his previous films. The Israeli-Palestinian situation has become too serious for that and the conflict seems less and less easy to resolve. A telephone conversation between Avi and a Palestinian friend, that runs through the film as a leitmotif, underlines this while Mograbi’s images demonstrate the painful, inhuman reality that faces the Palestinian population every day. Parallel to these images, the film maker tackles two myths beloved of Israelis: the rebellion against the Romans on Mount Massada, where the Jews chose collective suicide rather than surrender, and the ultimate self-sacrifice of the Biblical hero Samson, who made a Philistine temple collapse to cause the maximum number of victims. How much do these ‘heroic’ deeds differ from those of Palestinian suicide bombers? By placing everything in a contemporary reality, the film does not become pedantic but acquires a decisiveness that can sustain a necessary platform for debate. At the same time, Avenge But One of My Two Eyes is a fascinating document about the position of the documentary film maker with regard to his subject and the question of how much it is possible to remain objective. (CB)