Rabin’s murder is for Israeli society what is Kennedy’s one for Americans, a shot trauma. Amos Gitai confirms this implicitly, retracing the idea of a inquiry movie like JFK by Stone.
His Rabin, The Last Day, doesn’t put in scene the fiction like Stone did, but, since he also belongs to another era of cinema, examines very briefly the event, starting from the repertory video and then altering some reconstructions of the court of inquiry to others of the (soon caught) murderer incarceration, with actors.
However, the movie fails exactly in the visual structure, revealing the inevitable ideological intentions. Gitai has a personal idea about the whole question, as probably every other Israeli person with civic sense: he gives a precise meaning to this death (the triumph of hate policy and the growth of brutality), he has a specific idea on which was the cause and he uses his movie to promote it during the twenty year anniversary of Rabin’s death. It’s not a news, but what is news is the lack of a higher and more specific sense that could stimulate the movie. Gitai finds his shelter in images, in the repertory video shown many times and sounded out like Zapruder’s shot of Kennedy’s murderer, but in reality he wants to put in scene the words and his interpretation of the events (he doesn’t show every single thing about the inquiry court but only what is meaningful to him).
The cinema is an alibi for Rabin, The Last Day, an excuse for what could have been an opinion article that instead becomes a movie with no visual sense, that uses images to ask questions without justifying its existence.
By Gabriele Niola
Photos: Alessio Costantino
Translation by: Bianca Baroni
In collaboration with: Badtaste.it
