'Broken Wings' chronicles crumbling Israeli family

By Kenneth Turan
Los Angeles Times

Orli Zilbershatz-Banai is Dafna and Nitai Gvirtz (in mouse suit) is Yair in "Broken Wings," screening at the Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Academy of Arts beginning Wednesday. Sony Pictures Classics "Broken Wings" R, for crude language, nudity and drug abuse In Hebrew with English subtitles 86 minutes Screening at 1 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 7:30 p.m. July 31, 4 p.m. Aug. 1, at Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts

Both foreign and familiar, "Broken Wings" is an unashamed melodrama that brings an unmistakable texture of realism to its well-drawn characters. Though it makes no mention of the Palestinian situation that looms large in the national consciousness, it's nevertheless recognizable as the product of a culture permeated by a universal sense of crisis and loss.

The feature debut of writer-director Nir Bergman, "Broken Wings" was the winner of nine Israeli Academy Awards and top prizes at the Tokyo, Berlin and Jerusalem film festivals. It's an engrossing Israeli kitchen-sink drama, a look at dysfunctional family life as it both might — and might not — be lived anywhere.

"Broken Wings" opens with a slow pan of a Haifa cityscape that ends showing a rock band on a roof practicing a haunting song written by 17-year-old lead singer Maya (Maya Maron) for an about-to-begin battle of the bands.

She's good, but it doesn't matter. Her mother, Dafna (prominent Israeli actress Orli Zilbershatz-Banai), has been unexpectedly called into work as a hospital midwife, and a furious Maya has to skip the contest and baby-sit two younger siblings. She bicycles home in a fury, then helps her mother jump-start her wreck of a car while snapping with savage sarcasm, "I love these mother-daughter talks."

Maya may sound like the kind of sullen teen we've seen too much in various Sundance endeavors, but she's not. Because of the sensitivity of Maron's acting and the honesty of the characterization, we empathize with her to a remarkable extent. Plus she is dealing with an awful situation.

Nine months earlier, Maya's father — the man her song was written for — unexpectedly died, and she, her three siblings and their mother are barely able to cope with the aftermath. Dafna can just about manage to get to work, leaving Maya to manage her unhappy younger brother and sister, 11-year-old thrill seeker Ido (Daniel Magon) and his shy and withdrawn 6-year-old sister Bahr (Eliana Magon). The tragedy has caused a crisis in all their lives.

Most affected is 16-year-old Yair (Nitai Gvirtz), once a promising prep basketball player who has dropped out of school to spend his days handing out fliers while dressed in an animal costume.

Because "Broken Wings" is sensitively done within its melodramatic contours, it makes those confines seem less artificial. And when the melodrama does get strong, and it does, when bad things happen on a dark and stormy night, we go with it rather than resist. The film has won our trust, given some heft to its characters and involved us in their lives, come what may.