Tokyo Win: A Second Life for Nir Bergman’s Intimate Grammar?

A month and a half ago, everything seemed to be going well for Nir Bergman. His new film, Intimate Grammar was the favorite to win at the Israeli Academy Awards, and a release date was scheduled to a day after the ceremony. But then things took a turn for the worse.

Being nominated for 12 awards, the Academy managed to ignore every single one of the people behind the film, and the film went zero for twelve. The outcome hit the movie hard at the box office. Originally the movie was released in medium release (in Israel, a theatre count of 20 or more is considered wide. Bergman’s film was released in 12 copies all over the country), but now, with poor results, the movie is showing in about 4 or 5 venues. Bergman has a few successful projects in his resume, including the beautiful and successful Broken Wings, but right now, the number of tickets Intimate Grammar sold is less than a quarter of what Broken Wings made when it was released.

There is a chance for a second wind. 8 years ago, Broken Wings won the first prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival (see Bergman and his lead here). Last week it was announced that Intimate Grammar managed to do the same. Sony Pictures Classics picked up Broken Wings, and handled the distribution worldwide, but it remains to be seen if Bergman can expect a repeat experience. Bergman worked with actress Orly Zilbershatz Banai for the third time (Broken Wings, 2006’s Walking the Dog – a TV mini-series). The film is an adaptation of a book by famous author David Grossman (called The Book of intimate Grammar), and it tells of an 11 year-old son of holocaust survivors in 1960’s Israel (Zilbershatz Banai being the mother) who mysteriously stops growing. The second part of the movie, in which the boy travels deeper and deeper into himself, is a moving masterpiece.