Keren Yedaya takes both of her subjects down a road much traveled.
Winner of the Camera d’or at Cannes, this Israeli drama offers an unflinching, uninhibited look into the sort of mother-daughter relationship that sees the adolescent in the role of the caretaker and views a mother in a careless existence. Tearing a page from the resilient and resourceful grittiness found in the unsung hero in Belgium drama Rosetta, this young survivor’s tale featured in the run-down quarters of Tel-Aviv is about a compelling reversal of roles. Or (Dana Ivgy – Broken Wings) collects empty soda cans, scrubs dishes, makes sure that the bills get paid, baby-sits her mother and in a very loving scene, tends to her wounds. Despite Or’s efforts, it is one matter to want to change her mother’s prostitution, but it is a whole different issue to escape an already charted future. Keren Yedaya’s stationary camera shows that despite their strong bond, they both live and survive in a vicious circle where a daughter’s plight to take her mother off the streets quasi-impossible, and she accidentally – by necessity follows in her mother’s footsteps. Or (My Treasure) is an emotionally raw and unsettling piece – it hits a nerve partially because of the realism contained in the some of the film’s long takes, but mostly because there is this constant presence of desperation. Ultimately, the narrative is a small portion in the path of these two women, when the true reversal of roles is complete, the notion of hope that is demonstrated in many sequences of tenderness is implicitly laid to rest. Straying completely away from the political issues of the country, Yedaya focuses more of the narrative’s attention on a feminist agenda exploring the confusing role of men in society and shows how they are perhaps the seed of such evil. Or (My Treasure) is a hard watch, a calibrated and conscious effort made for all the right reasons.
