Scar holds a special place in the development and oeuvre of Ronit Elkabetz: it’s her first work as a co-screenwriter, and her sole work for someone other than herself or her brother, Shlomi.
And the project didn’t even originate with her: Haim Bouzaglo (who after this film wouldn’t work in cinema for some 10 years) had since the 1980s been working on a project called Scar, but with Elkabetz it took a different direction. In contrast to Elkabetz’s own co-directorial efforts, this film is all about abstraction at its most sensual but also allegorical: a man and a woman meet in the dark, to soon lose each other again. He searches for her and sees her in different women who all have her face but live in very different worlds – or maybe it’s just that he sees her in every woman he meets?
With its sense of being in a moment between eras, of looking for a future while trying to make sense of a past that feels disturbingly definite, Scar is very much a mid-1990s film – but also a work of unexpected actuality.
– Olaf Möller
Film details
- Country of production
- Israel
- Year
- 1994
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2023
- Length
- 99'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
