Melanoma My Love

Melanoma My Love, smartly and constantly shifting somewhere between documentary and fiction, is a breath-taking drama. The directors David Ofek (see also the documentary A Hebrew Lesson) and Joseph Madmony started working together while studying at the Sam Spiegel Film and TV School in Jerusalem.
The film is based on the true story of the Israeli actor Yigal Adika and his wife Orit, who suffered and died of cancer. Yigal, a personal friend of the directors, plays himself in the film as Uzi and by doing so re-enacts this special period in his life. His wife is a ballet dancer and teacher. She is thirty and has been diagnosed with melanoma. With the help of her husband and doctors, she is able to believe in a favourable outcome and fights her illness to the end. The film closely follows this fight by concentrating on the two loving people, their tender relationship and the effect the situation has on the whole family.
The film takes its audience into a whirl together with its main protagonists, as if they have become a part of their life. Asaf Sudri’s never resting hand-held camera and his great eye for detail add to this feeling. The directors succeeded in erasing the thin border between reality and fiction. (LC)