For fans of bleak foreign films that make you want to slit your wrists when you’re finished, don’t miss this hard-hitting, powerful film by Israeli director Keren Yedaya. Or is a hard worker. She collects discarded recyclable bottles, goes to school, and works washing dishes in her neighbor’s restaurant. She uses the money she collects from her bottle returns to buy food for her mother, who is just being released from a clinic. This mother-daughter family is struggling to make ends meet on the sporadic incomes of Or’s job. Oh, Or’s mother Ruthie works as well: as a prostitute, and while her work can occasionally bring in some money, Or is doing everything she can to get Ruthie to quit the business. She even goes so far as to find her mother a job cleaning the house of a wealthier (an slightly eccentric) mother of a friend. The problem is, while Ruthie loves her daughter, and realizes her chosen profession tears Or apart, she doesn’t really seem to want to stop. To complicate matters, Or is quite popular with the boys, and is pretty sexually active. Yedaya plainly shows us the difficulties life throws at these two women, and some of the joys as well. But it’s all short lived, as we can tell from the tone of the film. And the film spirals toward an inevitable conclusion despite possibilities that convince us that things might work out all right.
The talented actress Ronit Elkabetz is tragic and flawed as Ruthie. Young Dana Ivgy is heart breaking as Or, struggling mightily against forces beyond her ability to control. Yedaya bathes her film in realism, and many scenes seem so raw, naked and personal that I felt uncomfortable viewing them.
