Synonymes (2019) Movie Script
Excuse me!
Please!
Excuse me!
Please!
Please! I'm cold!
Please!
Please! My stuff's gone!
Excuse me!
Come back.
Don't be chicken.
It's open downstairs.
mile!
Beating?
I don't know.
Circumcised.
Call an ambulance.
Hold on.
Is this death?
Hello.
I'm mile.
She's Caroline.
Hello.
I'm Yoav.
I have nothing anymore.
I'll make you some tea.
I arrived yesterday.
Israel.
It's goose down?
Thank goodness we didn't save a bear.
Tell her the story you told me.
So...
It's tradition in my family to freeze.
In the war, my father froze half to death
in a fort on a snowbound mountaintop.
mile, snowbound
means covered in snow?
Yes, snowbound.
The only place in Israel
where you can freeze.
Years later, I served as a soldier
in that fortified border post.
One day, during a snowstorm,
I lost my way.
One day, during a snowstorm,
I lost my way.
I sat on the ice,
completely puzzled, muddled,
exhausted, resigned.
But I was saved.
Only to die on Rue Solferino.
To die.
How did you wind up here?
It was just for one night.
Stay if you want.
We have a spare room.
- Or I'll call you a cab.
- No.
I'm going to another place
on the other...
bank.
I look dashing enough to prance
with the nation's gentlemen.
Isn't that how you say it?
Grammatically, it's correct.
Counts, countesses. Dukes, duchesses!
Here...
A bag for cadavers.
- Pairs of socks?
- Yes.
Pairs of socks!
A tube of toothpaste.
- Boxers.
- Some boxers!
- A too...
- Towel.
Cellphone.
Overcoat.
I do not need them.
I have another couple dozen
I never wear.
Here...
For the taxi.
- I won't be able to pay you back.
- Like I give a damn.
This is all I have left.
The counts.
The countesses.
The dukes.
The duchesses.
The princes.
The princesses.
The prince.
The princess.
Do not look up.
Do not look up.
Do not look up.
- The checkout, please?
- Down on the left.
Have a good day.
Excuse me...
Hello.
I need a good dictionary. But light.
A light dictionary...
Odious.
Repugnant.
Fetid.
Obscene.
Vulgar.
Lamentable.
Sordid.
Crude.
Bestial.
Ignorant.
Mean-spirited.
Mean-hearted.
I moved to France to flee Israel.
Flee a state that is nasty,
obscene,
ignorant, idiotic,
sordid, fetid,
crude, abominable, odious,
lamentable, repugnant, detestable,
mean-spirited, mean-hearted...
No country is all that at once.
Choose.
Look up.
Why not? Look.
The Seine is a test
that the city sets you.
Its beauty is...
a bribe this city pays strangers
to keep them from the heart of the city,
which is neither beauty,
nor women, nor grandeur,
but something else
I have not yet discovered.
Heck of a speech.
I'm not sure
the heart you mention exists.
Rot and banality, sure.
Same as everywhere.
That's what I'm trying to write about.
Nights of Inertia.
I'm at page 40.
Some landscapes are so beautiful
that it's perversion not to look at them.
Take a look. It's only water.
What will you do here?
I do not know.
I'll be French.
That's not enough.
Perhaps, like you,
I'll start to write.
Why not?
When I am calmer.
In which language?
French, naturally.
I shall not go back.
Never?
Israel will die before I do.
I shall be buried
in Pre Lachaise cemetery.
My 42 pages.
"The rest of the journey ticks by.
"As idiotic and vain as at the start:
"youth left behind and maturity..."
"Looming."
Looming.
"And then, O, old age!"
"Her avalanche of flesh
oozes so beautifully..."
- Enough.
- Last one.
"Just a minuscule sky-blue crop top."
Sky-blue.
"The morning had passed us by,
gray and lukewarm."
Lukewarm?
"Lukewarm.
"Delicate, invigorating, limpid."
Delicate, invigorating, limpid.
I drink before writing
to ward off the fear.
The demeanor of a great writer.
The demeanor.
My father, a business tycoon,
told me,
You want to write? No problem.
But do you think you'll be Victor Hugo?
One-half Victor Hugo?
One-third Victor Hugo?
Here's where I lash out
when my words aren't beautiful.
And if nothing comes...
Over here.
My finest phrases came to me this way.
mile?
mile!
Hi.
If I knew I might never create
anything fundamental and urgent,
I'd kill myself.
My mother's father was a terrorist,
who fought the British
in order to liberate Israel.
"With blood and sweat,
we'll raise a race.
"Pure, generous and cruel.
"Die or conquer the mountain!"
Die or conquer the mountain!
Two of his comrades
were sentenced by the British to...
- Hanging?
- Yes, hanging.
On the eve of their execution,
they put a grenade between their chests
and pressed hard,
then harder and harder still
and harder still.
To die heart to heart.
Would you do that with Caroline?
I'd do it with you.
During the seven months I spent in Paris,
I ate the same meal every day.
Half a pack of discount pasta,
at 0.57 euros per pack.
One fourth of a can of crushed tomatoes
or peeled tomatoes,
at 0.87 euros per can.
Two spoonfuls of cream
from a tub costing 1.26 euros.
For dessert, 200 grams of chips
that cost 0.58 euros.
All prices were those of the Leader Price
on Place de la Rpublique.
The worst produce
in the cheapest supermarket,
serving the poorest customers,
selling neither vegetables, or fruit.
Total cost of my daily meal,
main course + dessert = 1.28 euros.
Including neither oil for the frying pan,
nor grains of salt.
Die, discover.
Discover, die.
Abjure, peruse.
Abjure, perjure, abhor.
Abjure, conjure,
perjure, abhor.
Leave, relieve,
discover, die,
sneer, jeer,
holler, color.
Turn, well-turned.
Well-endowed,
applied to shapely women.
Front.
Back.
Stairwell.
Security post.
Offices.
Surrounding area.
Main entrance.
We have a French security detail.
There's Franois, there's Albert.
And a new guy with glasses.
They try but they're shit.
You double-check.
Passports, door passes.
We'll train you up and you start.
Watch out for minorities.
The usual suspects.
Skin color, facial features.
Language they talk.
"S" pronounced "ch." Arab accents.
Named Rashid, Jamil, Karim.
Okay.
Why France?
I escaped.
Meaning?
Moron.
Here! Here!
Authorized access. Tolga
- What's Tolga?
- Don't know.
What is Tolga?
It's for the aircon.
This is my son and assistant.
I'll be done by 4pm.
Ask his son's name.
I'll let him stew.
What did you do in the army?
Nothing special.
Why not speak Hebrew?
Your ID. And the boy's.
My son didn't bring ID.
Like my father in the war,
I did my military service
in a fort on a snowbound mountaintop.
Your father's military?
Everyone's military back home?
No, he's a History teacher.
One day, I'm summoned
to a midland base
to take an exam to become an officer.
I'm happy.
As an officer, I'll go places
where guys kill and get killed.
Eight hours' drive, and the whole way
the rifle rubs on my thighs
through the thin fabric of the uniform.
As part of the exam,
we were given six pictures.
We had to tell a story
based on each picture.
We all know
the story has to be optimistic.
An army officer
must always be optimistic.
Picture one.
A young man and an older man
scribble a formula on a board.
"Scribble." I love it.
Like warble.
My answer.
They have discovered
a treatment for cancer.
Picture two.
A 10-year-old
stands in the middle of a room.
He points a shotgun at his head.
How do I save this fucked-up kid?
I come up with a story
about an unloved child.
His father, the tyrant, walks out.
His mother goes loopy.
The desperate child decides to...
But just as he starts to squeeze the...
What do you call the...
Trigger.
...trigger, he suddenly realizes
life is marvelous.
Later, in a meeting with a psychologist,
he keeps asking me
if I want to harm myself.
I realize it's because of that child.
Inside myself, I'm furious.
He should thank me
for saving the suicidal kid
from blowing his brains out.
Then I think,
maybe the others wrote something
a thousand times more optimistic.
I turn to a soldier
I disdained for being a poltroon.
Can I say poltroon?
Yes, but it's very literary.
Chicken, scaredy-cat.
- The kid? I ask poltroon.
- What?
The kid with gun and mag.
The suicide case.
What? He laughs.
He laughs.
That wasn't a gun and magazine
but a violin and bow.
I check the picture.
A child and a violin.
The child stands in the middle of a room
and plays a sonata.
Awesome story.
No?
All I want now is to write
while I still have time.
- Are you all right?
- Yes.
While he still has time?
Is he sick?
He told you about his family?
I know mile has a brother
who's named after a literary hero.
Yes.
And that mile's parents
live without desire.
No...
It's just we never paid anything here.
The apartment, the bills.
He mentioned the factory?
mile has a factory?
It was a funny story you told.
But I don't believe you got
a shotgun and violin mixed up.
Or a bow and magazine
Compress,
constrain,
retain, restrict,
repress, restrain.
Rein in wishes.
Rein in desires.
Rein in fantasies.
Words that strike.
Words that strike harder.
Words that are hurtful,
violent, muscular.
Words that dominate other words,
humiliate them.
Words that are weak, limp, pale, greasy.
Words that beat other words.
That kick their heads in.
Yoav?
Mohammad is dead
Mohammad is dead
He's dead!
I'm Michel.
Nice to meet you.
Speak Hebrew.
Currently, I speak French.
Friends of mine asked me to help you.
What are you doing in France?
I'm resting.
Paris junior kung-Fu champion,
bodyguard classes with the CIA.
Bodyguard for judges in Colombia,
army instructor in Africa.
Instructor also
for the rebels fighting them.
I stoke up war.
I battle against myself.
Over there, I met some Israelis.
Fighters.
I was merely a weak Jew.
In Africa, I heard tell
of the beauty of Israel.
Of its history.
In Africa,
I met Oren, your commander.
He's in love with you, you know?
Oren.
My office.
90, Rue Amelot.
11th Arrondissement.
I'll talk to the guys from security.
Or you have other options?
No. Thanks.
What's that?
A unicorn?
A unicorn appears only in legends.
That's a buffalo.
Buffalo?
B-u-f-f...
B-u-f-f-a-l-o.
Buffalo.
Buffalo.
Male buffalo.
I was waiting for you.
Me?
Yaron, backup security agent.
- Security?
- Yes.
Local.
Can you help me, please?
I have never been outside France.
Apart from my time in Israel.
What's France like?
A free-for-all.
Gosh, life is sublime.
Intelligence reports say
Europe is a hornets' nest.
France especially.
Terror, dude!
I saw a rabbi on TV
hiding his kippa under a hat.
Jews are taking refuge in Israel.
Everywhere I go, I'll say...
Hello, I'm from Israel. I'm Jewish.
Anyone complains, boot in the gut.
Even if I'm alone and outnumbered.
If only I'd been
at the Jewish supermarket attack.
Or the one in Nice.
Kaboom goes the truck.
You remind me of someone
that I admired when I was little.
Who?
Hector.
Hector of Troy.
Don't know him.
A war hero in olden times.
My parents told me his story.
When they switched out the light,
I lay in bed quivering with joy
at the idea that Hector existed.
His enemies were tenacious.
And powerful.
Yoav?
It's me.
Yes.
Let me see you.
How are you?
Alive.
Alive!
You know I don't understand French.
No Hebrew, sorry.
Never again.
Have you gone mad?
I thought French women
were more beautiful.
No breasts.
Hidden under their clothes.
I'm from Israel.
Jewish!
Thanks. And the peanuts?
The Greeks besieged Troy for nine years
and failed to conquer it.
That's the story my parents told me
when I was 4 years old.
Hector was the hero of Troy,
while Achilles
was the Greeks' greatest warrior.
Who won?
Thanks!
After nine years,
they met for a decisive combat.
Hector's wife begged him to stay home.
Nobody could fight Achilles!
Finding himself opposite Achilles,
even brave Hector shook in terror.
He started running.
Running?
He ran? Ran away?
Nine times, they ran around
the walls of Troy
Achilles in pursuit, Hector in flight.
So you were for the coward.
Do not look up.
Do not look up.
My mile, my love.
Caroline who saved my life.
Did I tell you both
how I played the machine gun
and perforated an Arab terrorist?
At the border post on the mountain,
there was a machine gun.
I was the guy who carried it.
I disassembled it and reassembled it.
Nothing more.
Boredom.
A new commander came to the fort.
A philosopher.
He contemplated Beirut and Damascus
from the mountaintop
and, like me,
he prayed for war to break out.
That crazy commander
taught me to play the machine gun.
The machine gun's trigger
is ultra-sensitive.
The real test for the shooter
is to play Pink Floyd or...
Down!
Which song was it?
Which song was it?
Which song was it?
No idea.
mile?
Something Israeli? Something classical?
Sorry.
This is Yaron, whom I told you about.
He came here to save the Jews.
Michel.
Hello.
Give it to him!
Michel
Head of special operations.
Yes.
For Betar in Paris.
Twice a year,
we organize fights
against French Neo-Nazis.
It's dark.
We're armed with pitchforks
and they bring wolfdogs.
At the last fight,
I ripped apart a German dog
with my bare hands.
I'm in, Michel.
I'm thirsty for action.
My throat is parched. Ask my friend.
You need to know
it might end the hardest way.
Understand?
I have had friends killed.
Sunday,
4am, here.
Sportswear.
Until then...
You're coming too.
No.
He's precious material.
- Mr. and Mrs. Nir?
- Yes.
You can come in.
Come in.
Cross the border.
Go on, cross the border!
Security told them to wait.
People will not wait in the rain
for an Israeli agent
to deign to get his frizz wet.
Let's go! Cross the border!
Come in!
- Thank you.
- It's my pleasure.
Cross! Everybody, come in!
There is no border!
No more border!
None!
No border!
None!
Go inside!
Come on, go inside!
All of you! Everybody inside!
Everybody inside!
Ma'am, go inside!
Go in, all of you!
I had a sense, in the street,
of being followed.
See anyone?
Caroline.
Guess which instrument.
She plays oboe
at the local conservatory.
She is tragically infatuated
with the instrument. You hear it?
Playing oboe in the local orchestra
is as close as can be
to growing potatoes.
Before we met,
she'd hang out in bars and nightclubs.
She was capable of fucking anyone.
Students, doctors,
teachers.
In the elevator with a stranger.
Caroline?
There was no need even
to seduce her with words.
She'd just tell them, come on.
She humiliated them.
And was humiliated.
For whatever they produced
with their tongues.
For all the tastes of sperm.
There was this one guy.
Old. Gave up everything for her.
A total mediocrity except for his desire.
And you?
Me? And you?
Me?
Whenever opportunities arose...
I'm gone.
We're going.
I'm going to see Yaron.
The tough guy who brawls in tourist bars?
I shall run no more from you,
says Hector to Achilles,
after nine laps of the city walls.
His legs trembled but he stood still.
And then?
My parents lost their nerve,
unable to go on.
They shut and hid the book
so Yoav, age 4, would forget Hector.
Hector, the person he loved most
in the world, who soon...
would croak?
Would die, be killed.
Succumbing to the lance of Achilles,
who impales his feet on a chariot
and drags his corpse over the sand.
Only when Hector's aging father
pleads with Achilles in his camp
does the latter relent.
He lets him carry the dusty body
away on his back.
At home, my parents never again
talked to me about Hector.
I kept silent also.
For how long?
A few months later,
my parents had invited friends over.
Laughter wafted from the living room.
Suddenly Yoav, age 4, enters.
He looks like
he's emerging from a deep sleep.
He gazes at them with a severe gaze
until they fall silent, and he says,
You can have all the fun you want
but I know that Hector is dead.
Male, young, handsome,
braw
Male, young, handsome, brawny,
happy to serve as artists' model...
Devour, eat,
eat everything, eat the entire city.
Now you come, the bad thoughts?
When I'm hungry
and my stomach's empty?
Today's special:
Rib of beef, 30 euros.
Plain croissant, butter croissant,
almond croissant, chocolate croissant.
Hot chocolate, chocolate mousse,
chocolate pancake,
chocolate pancake with banana.
Why didn't you dash naked into the street
the night we found you?
You wanted to die?
With you and all your stories,
he feels banal.
Stop it, Caro.
Boredom structures me.
And France, France...
It's ridiculous.
Do you know anything about France?
Or anyone in France except us two?
Cline Dion.
Isn't it ridiculous?
Your weird French, where's it from?
The pump!
A week ago,
the bathroom sink was blocked.
I knocked on doors,
Sorry can you help me?
An old man appears.
I'm Yoav, Y-o-a-v, your neighbor.
A pump perhaps?
He gets a pump.
I found the word here.
- Pump attendants are pump stars.
- Be right back.
Go ahead, keep going.
- I'll go buy a sandwich.
- And one for me?
And for the monk. He's starving.
You okay?
Tell me,
I love you.
Not here.
Cavern, titan, oxygen,
antenna, mantra, refrain, ritornello,
rerun, rehash, cavern, cave, hole,
tuberculosis, lung, lung.
Oblige, obliged, enrage,
pillage, ravage, derange.
Damned, blade, iron, my mother, tripe.
Trick, trick, sweetish, sweetish, gray.
Sweetish, sweetish, grayish, grayish.
Ageist, psychiatrist, purplish.
Tripe, trick, type, gripe, trick, type.
I was passing by.
How did you know where I live?
It really is small.
Sorry about the smell,
I was making something to eat.
250g of pasta
with cream and crushed tomatoes?
mile made it once
for us to taste but...
he added capers.
Can I taste it?
I thought about trying to teach Hebrew.
By the way, about my model ad,
somebody called.
An artist or a pervert?
An artist or a pervert?
mile says there are
no more perversions in the world.
They've vanished.
I have no choice...
mile asked me to convince you
to accept more money from him.
He's afraid you'll vanish.
Would you like me
to introduce you to a friend of mine?
She plays in the orchestra with me.
A pretty brunette.
As they say.
I have no money for her.
When I saw you, frozen in the bath...
I knew we'd sleep together.
If you stayed alive.
Listen, mile...
I've decided to give you my stories.
I'll make nothing of them.
They're all yours.
Michel, Yaron, the balcony,
the pump, my hunger, the bath.
I'm also giving you the Israeli stories.
The army, the violin.
I wrote up the violin already.
I was going to tell you.
Take my father in the fort.
Take me in the fort,
take the corpses on the rocks.
Take the dead, the wars.
My whole life story is yours.
Prepare to order arms.
Order arms!
The silver star ceremony.
Prepare to present arms.
Present arms.
A military cemetery.
Prepare to order arms.
Order arms.
My parents in the audience.
The Commander steps up
to give a speech.
"Before I decorate these brave soldiers,
let me tell you, fathers and mothers,
to me you're the real heroes.
Okay, pretty solemn guy.
A sudden laugh erupted.
A thunderous, booming, shattering laugh.
My mother's laugh.
Everybody, soldiers and parents
turns to see
the woman who laughs at the Colonel.
I just shrivel.
The slaps we get from our parents.
She wanted to save me
from their sickness.
I have nothing for you in return.
My life is boring.
You have given me enough.
Tell me something. Your name but...
With desire.
Yoav.
With violence.
Yoav.
You can take off your pants.
Okay? Cold?
You can take off your briefs.
Angry face.
Concentrating face.
Count to ten.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...
Now...
Say, I'm on fire.
I can't hold back any longer.
I try to hold back but...
I can't
I'm on fire.
I try to hold back but...
What?
I'm on fire!
I can't hold back.
I try to hold back but I can't!
I'm on fire. I try to hold back...
I can't.
Here...
Sit down.
Touch yourself.
Touch yourself on your thigh.
Inside your thigh.
I never masturbate.
Put your hand on your penis.
You're beautiful.
Now...
Stand up.
Lie on your back.
And put your feet there.
- Hey, Yasmina.
- Hi.
Could you slip a finger in your anus?
Tell me that feels so good.
It's divine.
I love it.
I finger myself
and it feels so good.
Use words that are more...
My cock, my...
My instrument...
My instrument is growing
bigger and bigger.
It's becoming as hard as a sword.
Be gentle, be gentle.
I desire you. You make me hard.
You make me...
You give me a boner.
You give me a boner so easily.
Yes, it's beautiful with your accent.
Now say it in your own tongue.
Say what you just said
but in your own tongue.
Say it in, what is it?
Hebrew.
Say it in Hebrew.
What for?
For me.
But in any event
you won't understand.
No matter. I want the sound.
Go on.
That's good.
That's fun.
Groan. Say more words.
It's good!
Other words! You already said that.
It's good! Yes!
It's good!
Zetov, you said already!
Cock!
Yes! Cock!
Cock! Cock!
What am I doing here?
What am I doing here?
Cock!
- Cock! What the hell am I doing?
- Great! Wonderful!
Cock! Cock! Fuck instrument!
Fuck! Fuck you!
Fucking you!
What am I doing here?
That's great! More! Yes!
Cock! Cock! Run away!
- Wonderful!
- Run away! Run! Go!
More! Yes!
Run! Save yourself! Cock!
Cock! Cock!
Wonderful!
Cock!
Okay, we're done.
Okay.
I'm at Charles de Gaulle airport.
Here to take you home.
It's Dad.
I hear you live in a shoebox.
You don't eat.
You didn't even call us once.
You freaked out at the Embassy.
They told us about it.
Let me see you.
Anything happen I don't know about?
Your mother thought maybe in the army?
Let Mom and I help you.
Come for a week in Israel.
You're not well.
Thank you.
Money?
- I won't take it.
- Don't be stupid.
We had lunch
and he wanted you to buy food, too.
What did he say?
He wasn't very talkative.
When I said you wouldn't come,
he hunched on his chair in silence.
I talked a little about me.
I liked your father.
From your mother.
Vitamins.
I don't want them. Take it.
You're cruel.
Gosh.
Your father said you won a silver star.
I said you told us about Hector
and them keeping the end from you.
I saw tears in his eyes.
Hello.
Please may I have a chicken panini?
- Could you warm it through?
- Sure.
He worries about you rejecting Hebrew.
He says giving up your language
kills part of yourself.
Really?
He told you about his father?
Top student at bible school in Lithuania,
but a rebel.
He gave it all up
to go to Palestine under the British,
a land of swamps and of...
- Of what?
- Epidemics.
- Your panini, sir.
- Thanks.
His idealistic, sensitive brother's suicide
after emigrating, that didn't stop him.
His family waved him off,
and was exterminated in the Holocaust.
In Israel, he spoke Hebrew,
rejecting Yiddish,
the language of his youth.
He said he'd never speak the language,
in which he was beaten.
You do the opposite!
Really? I think my grandfather
would do exactly the same as me.
Is he still alive?
No.
Mine is, but nobody talks to him now.
I have to go.
I wanted to see you for myself
so I can tell your mother you're fine.
Are you okay?
We're both early.
You said it was important.
Caroline and Yoav...
I brought you together here today
to announce your wedding.
I've been thinking about it a while.
Now it is time.
You can become French
and stay in Paris your whole life.
We need to move fast
to start the naturalization process.
I called my uncle, who's at city hall.
There's a slot tomorrow, at 1:30,
if you're both free.
Others wait months
but we are children of god.
I have a rehearsal at 3 tomorrow.
My love, marrying is faster than fucking.
I'm free.
I'll call my uncle.
City hall, tomorrow 1:30.
That's when I rush in and say I object.
The rooster is French. Why?
Why?
Because it is brave and strong.
And gets up early.
Past tense now.
The rooster was brave.
The rooster was brave.
The rooster was strong.
And got up early.
Future tense.
The French rooster will be brave,
will be strong and will get up early.
Integration courses
became mandatory in 2002.
Not everybody gets a French passport.
If you're a murderer,
if you're a trafficker,
if you jumped the Metro turnstile
without permission...
Monsieur Keita, lovely name.
I have Keitas every day.
You must make an effort.
You'll be asked questions.
How many counties?
How many city halls?
How many presidents in the 5th Republic?
De Gaulle,
Pompidou, Giscard d'Estaing
whom you can call Valry,
Mitterrand, Chirac, Sarkozy,
Hollande, Macron.
The name of our national anthem?
La Marseillaise.
Who will read the words?
You?
My name is Elyne. I come from Taiwan.
- Are you shy?
- Not at all.
We're all ears, Elyne.
Arise, children of the fatherland!
The day of glory has arrived
Against us stands tyranny
With its bloody standard raised
Do you hear across the meadows
The roar of those fearsome soldiers?
They advance into our midst
To slit the throats of our sons
and your consorts
Take up arms, citizens!
Make up your battalions!
Let's march!
So that impure blood
Irrigates our fields!
And you, second verse?
Yoav, Israeli,
persecuted by Israeli security.
If I may, a little bit louder, please.
Sacred love of the fatherland
Lead and support our avenging arms!
Liberty! Beloved liberty!
Fight alongside your defenders
Under our banner, let victory...
Under our banner, let victory
Jump to your manly voice
May your fallen enemies
See your triumph and our glory!
Louder, please! Louder!
Take up arms, citizens!
Make up your battalions!
Let's march!
Let's march!
So that impure blood
Irrigates our fields!
So that impure blood
Irrigates our fields!
Darling! The guy
who's going to crown you.
A real rifle, buddy.
The Israeli soldier.
Yasmina, the Palestinian.
Y-o-a-v.
Yoav.
My name's Yoav.
That's your real name?
I come from Lebanon.
You're from Israel?
I grew up there.
So we won't be able to talk.
My grandfather
lived in southern Lebanon.
Get undressed, biblical hero.
I'll be right back.
You enrolled in the Foreign Legion?
Yes.
But I fled before the first gunshot.
Sorry, I can't invite you in.
There's a reception at the factory.
This feels really awkward.
I need you
to give my stories back.
Sure.
Take them back.
They're nothing special.
But they're mine.
Thanks for your honesty.
Generosity has its limits too, right?
We have no choice but to stop all this.
Now?
After we married?
I sense mile has had enough.
What if he has?
You discussed it?
This situation disgusts me.
My gazelle.
Now you. Israel!
Sing.
In the Jewish heart
Jewish spirit still sings
And the eyes look east
Toward Zion
Our hope is not lost
Our hope of 2,000 years
- Thank you.
- Wait!
Free in our land
Of Zion and Jerusalem
If you remember one date, that one!
The separation of church and state.
Secular, secular, secular.
In France, no one asks you
your religion.
In France,
no one talks about their religion.
Two months ago,
a man prayed out on the lawn.
The janitor took a photo.
We dealt with him.
Here, no money goes to religions.
No money to churches,
mosques or synagogues.
Money is for education, not religion.
Because there is no religion.
Because there is no god.
Because god does not exist.
Women have the right to choose
who they marry.
True or false?
True or false?
True.
If a woman disagrees with her husband,
he can beat her.
True or false?
False.
Women are smarter than men,
but men unfortunately
are stronger than women.
Every three days in France,
a woman dies at her husband's hands.
You arrive home to find your wife
in bed with another man or woman.
You can kill her.
True or false?
False.
If your son is attracted to men,
you slaughter him.
True or false?
False.
France upholds freedom of speech
and opinion for all.
- True or false?
- True.
The Republic's values
are only valid for French citizens.
- True or false?
- False.
I have to go.
Thanks for the invitation.
I hope it wasn't too arduous.
I have nothing good to say.
The music you people played
is inadmissibly admissible.
The more I listened,
the more desolation overwhelmed me.
That is why I am leaving.
Sir!
What you just said and the
manner in which you said it...
was frankly very rude.
Indeed it is a good idea for you...
You want to fight?
Calm down.
Why not?
- Come on.
- Let me go.
Fight for your music.
Allow me to introduce the Israeli rooster
I told you about.
For six months he's been amusing us.
France upholds free speech for all.
True?
False?
Mr. Cello, if a woman
disagrees with her husband...
He wants Brussels sprouts.
He demands them!
She says, No!
Never! I abhor Brussels sprouts.
The husband is allowed to beat her.
True?
Or false?
However smart she is.
True?
Or false?
Ms. Violin,
women are allowed
to choose who they marry. True?
False?
Choose only guys who accept
the Republic's values. True?
Or false?
If your sons loved men,
you'd ignore them or talk to them?
Slaughter them or not slaughter them?
Speak without fear.
Say whatever comes to mind!
One moment, we have not finished.
We have a long story.
The rooster wakes early,
the rooster's democratic...
B-B! B-B!
Ms. Oboe...
I came to save you all.
Do you not understand?
A great nation is sinking.
I understand.
You understand what?
Why you didn't dash naked
into the street.
You think you're acting mad.
You are mad!
Is that how a woman talks to her husband?
That woman is married to me.
Do you know?
She did me an act of grace
by taking me as her husband
Don't go thinking I'm ungrateful.
People of France, look at me!
You saved me once.
Now I have come to save you all.
The Republic's sinking!
A tiny leak getting bigger and bigger.
Even me, when I arrived here...
the drain of the bath tub swallowed me.
Michel is dead.
Too bad.
It's Yoav.
mile, it's Yoav.
I know you're home.
I came to say goodbye.
We are friends above all.
You're sending me back to a country
whose fate is sealed.
You have no idea
how lucky you are to be French.
This film is dedicated
to its editor, my mother, Era Lapid.
Please!
Excuse me!
Please!
Please! I'm cold!
Please!
Please! My stuff's gone!
Excuse me!
Come back.
Don't be chicken.
It's open downstairs.
mile!
Beating?
I don't know.
Circumcised.
Call an ambulance.
Hold on.
Is this death?
Hello.
I'm mile.
She's Caroline.
Hello.
I'm Yoav.
I have nothing anymore.
I'll make you some tea.
I arrived yesterday.
Israel.
It's goose down?
Thank goodness we didn't save a bear.
Tell her the story you told me.
So...
It's tradition in my family to freeze.
In the war, my father froze half to death
in a fort on a snowbound mountaintop.
mile, snowbound
means covered in snow?
Yes, snowbound.
The only place in Israel
where you can freeze.
Years later, I served as a soldier
in that fortified border post.
One day, during a snowstorm,
I lost my way.
One day, during a snowstorm,
I lost my way.
I sat on the ice,
completely puzzled, muddled,
exhausted, resigned.
But I was saved.
Only to die on Rue Solferino.
To die.
How did you wind up here?
It was just for one night.
Stay if you want.
We have a spare room.
- Or I'll call you a cab.
- No.
I'm going to another place
on the other...
bank.
I look dashing enough to prance
with the nation's gentlemen.
Isn't that how you say it?
Grammatically, it's correct.
Counts, countesses. Dukes, duchesses!
Here...
A bag for cadavers.
- Pairs of socks?
- Yes.
Pairs of socks!
A tube of toothpaste.
- Boxers.
- Some boxers!
- A too...
- Towel.
Cellphone.
Overcoat.
I do not need them.
I have another couple dozen
I never wear.
Here...
For the taxi.
- I won't be able to pay you back.
- Like I give a damn.
This is all I have left.
The counts.
The countesses.
The dukes.
The duchesses.
The princes.
The princesses.
The prince.
The princess.
Do not look up.
Do not look up.
Do not look up.
- The checkout, please?
- Down on the left.
Have a good day.
Excuse me...
Hello.
I need a good dictionary. But light.
A light dictionary...
Odious.
Repugnant.
Fetid.
Obscene.
Vulgar.
Lamentable.
Sordid.
Crude.
Bestial.
Ignorant.
Mean-spirited.
Mean-hearted.
I moved to France to flee Israel.
Flee a state that is nasty,
obscene,
ignorant, idiotic,
sordid, fetid,
crude, abominable, odious,
lamentable, repugnant, detestable,
mean-spirited, mean-hearted...
No country is all that at once.
Choose.
Look up.
Why not? Look.
The Seine is a test
that the city sets you.
Its beauty is...
a bribe this city pays strangers
to keep them from the heart of the city,
which is neither beauty,
nor women, nor grandeur,
but something else
I have not yet discovered.
Heck of a speech.
I'm not sure
the heart you mention exists.
Rot and banality, sure.
Same as everywhere.
That's what I'm trying to write about.
Nights of Inertia.
I'm at page 40.
Some landscapes are so beautiful
that it's perversion not to look at them.
Take a look. It's only water.
What will you do here?
I do not know.
I'll be French.
That's not enough.
Perhaps, like you,
I'll start to write.
Why not?
When I am calmer.
In which language?
French, naturally.
I shall not go back.
Never?
Israel will die before I do.
I shall be buried
in Pre Lachaise cemetery.
My 42 pages.
"The rest of the journey ticks by.
"As idiotic and vain as at the start:
"youth left behind and maturity..."
"Looming."
Looming.
"And then, O, old age!"
"Her avalanche of flesh
oozes so beautifully..."
- Enough.
- Last one.
"Just a minuscule sky-blue crop top."
Sky-blue.
"The morning had passed us by,
gray and lukewarm."
Lukewarm?
"Lukewarm.
"Delicate, invigorating, limpid."
Delicate, invigorating, limpid.
I drink before writing
to ward off the fear.
The demeanor of a great writer.
The demeanor.
My father, a business tycoon,
told me,
You want to write? No problem.
But do you think you'll be Victor Hugo?
One-half Victor Hugo?
One-third Victor Hugo?
Here's where I lash out
when my words aren't beautiful.
And if nothing comes...
Over here.
My finest phrases came to me this way.
mile?
mile!
Hi.
If I knew I might never create
anything fundamental and urgent,
I'd kill myself.
My mother's father was a terrorist,
who fought the British
in order to liberate Israel.
"With blood and sweat,
we'll raise a race.
"Pure, generous and cruel.
"Die or conquer the mountain!"
Die or conquer the mountain!
Two of his comrades
were sentenced by the British to...
- Hanging?
- Yes, hanging.
On the eve of their execution,
they put a grenade between their chests
and pressed hard,
then harder and harder still
and harder still.
To die heart to heart.
Would you do that with Caroline?
I'd do it with you.
During the seven months I spent in Paris,
I ate the same meal every day.
Half a pack of discount pasta,
at 0.57 euros per pack.
One fourth of a can of crushed tomatoes
or peeled tomatoes,
at 0.87 euros per can.
Two spoonfuls of cream
from a tub costing 1.26 euros.
For dessert, 200 grams of chips
that cost 0.58 euros.
All prices were those of the Leader Price
on Place de la Rpublique.
The worst produce
in the cheapest supermarket,
serving the poorest customers,
selling neither vegetables, or fruit.
Total cost of my daily meal,
main course + dessert = 1.28 euros.
Including neither oil for the frying pan,
nor grains of salt.
Die, discover.
Discover, die.
Abjure, peruse.
Abjure, perjure, abhor.
Abjure, conjure,
perjure, abhor.
Leave, relieve,
discover, die,
sneer, jeer,
holler, color.
Turn, well-turned.
Well-endowed,
applied to shapely women.
Front.
Back.
Stairwell.
Security post.
Offices.
Surrounding area.
Main entrance.
We have a French security detail.
There's Franois, there's Albert.
And a new guy with glasses.
They try but they're shit.
You double-check.
Passports, door passes.
We'll train you up and you start.
Watch out for minorities.
The usual suspects.
Skin color, facial features.
Language they talk.
"S" pronounced "ch." Arab accents.
Named Rashid, Jamil, Karim.
Okay.
Why France?
I escaped.
Meaning?
Moron.
Here! Here!
Authorized access. Tolga
- What's Tolga?
- Don't know.
What is Tolga?
It's for the aircon.
This is my son and assistant.
I'll be done by 4pm.
Ask his son's name.
I'll let him stew.
What did you do in the army?
Nothing special.
Why not speak Hebrew?
Your ID. And the boy's.
My son didn't bring ID.
Like my father in the war,
I did my military service
in a fort on a snowbound mountaintop.
Your father's military?
Everyone's military back home?
No, he's a History teacher.
One day, I'm summoned
to a midland base
to take an exam to become an officer.
I'm happy.
As an officer, I'll go places
where guys kill and get killed.
Eight hours' drive, and the whole way
the rifle rubs on my thighs
through the thin fabric of the uniform.
As part of the exam,
we were given six pictures.
We had to tell a story
based on each picture.
We all know
the story has to be optimistic.
An army officer
must always be optimistic.
Picture one.
A young man and an older man
scribble a formula on a board.
"Scribble." I love it.
Like warble.
My answer.
They have discovered
a treatment for cancer.
Picture two.
A 10-year-old
stands in the middle of a room.
He points a shotgun at his head.
How do I save this fucked-up kid?
I come up with a story
about an unloved child.
His father, the tyrant, walks out.
His mother goes loopy.
The desperate child decides to...
But just as he starts to squeeze the...
What do you call the...
Trigger.
...trigger, he suddenly realizes
life is marvelous.
Later, in a meeting with a psychologist,
he keeps asking me
if I want to harm myself.
I realize it's because of that child.
Inside myself, I'm furious.
He should thank me
for saving the suicidal kid
from blowing his brains out.
Then I think,
maybe the others wrote something
a thousand times more optimistic.
I turn to a soldier
I disdained for being a poltroon.
Can I say poltroon?
Yes, but it's very literary.
Chicken, scaredy-cat.
- The kid? I ask poltroon.
- What?
The kid with gun and mag.
The suicide case.
What? He laughs.
He laughs.
That wasn't a gun and magazine
but a violin and bow.
I check the picture.
A child and a violin.
The child stands in the middle of a room
and plays a sonata.
Awesome story.
No?
All I want now is to write
while I still have time.
- Are you all right?
- Yes.
While he still has time?
Is he sick?
He told you about his family?
I know mile has a brother
who's named after a literary hero.
Yes.
And that mile's parents
live without desire.
No...
It's just we never paid anything here.
The apartment, the bills.
He mentioned the factory?
mile has a factory?
It was a funny story you told.
But I don't believe you got
a shotgun and violin mixed up.
Or a bow and magazine
Compress,
constrain,
retain, restrict,
repress, restrain.
Rein in wishes.
Rein in desires.
Rein in fantasies.
Words that strike.
Words that strike harder.
Words that are hurtful,
violent, muscular.
Words that dominate other words,
humiliate them.
Words that are weak, limp, pale, greasy.
Words that beat other words.
That kick their heads in.
Yoav?
Mohammad is dead
Mohammad is dead
He's dead!
I'm Michel.
Nice to meet you.
Speak Hebrew.
Currently, I speak French.
Friends of mine asked me to help you.
What are you doing in France?
I'm resting.
Paris junior kung-Fu champion,
bodyguard classes with the CIA.
Bodyguard for judges in Colombia,
army instructor in Africa.
Instructor also
for the rebels fighting them.
I stoke up war.
I battle against myself.
Over there, I met some Israelis.
Fighters.
I was merely a weak Jew.
In Africa, I heard tell
of the beauty of Israel.
Of its history.
In Africa,
I met Oren, your commander.
He's in love with you, you know?
Oren.
My office.
90, Rue Amelot.
11th Arrondissement.
I'll talk to the guys from security.
Or you have other options?
No. Thanks.
What's that?
A unicorn?
A unicorn appears only in legends.
That's a buffalo.
Buffalo?
B-u-f-f...
B-u-f-f-a-l-o.
Buffalo.
Buffalo.
Male buffalo.
I was waiting for you.
Me?
Yaron, backup security agent.
- Security?
- Yes.
Local.
Can you help me, please?
I have never been outside France.
Apart from my time in Israel.
What's France like?
A free-for-all.
Gosh, life is sublime.
Intelligence reports say
Europe is a hornets' nest.
France especially.
Terror, dude!
I saw a rabbi on TV
hiding his kippa under a hat.
Jews are taking refuge in Israel.
Everywhere I go, I'll say...
Hello, I'm from Israel. I'm Jewish.
Anyone complains, boot in the gut.
Even if I'm alone and outnumbered.
If only I'd been
at the Jewish supermarket attack.
Or the one in Nice.
Kaboom goes the truck.
You remind me of someone
that I admired when I was little.
Who?
Hector.
Hector of Troy.
Don't know him.
A war hero in olden times.
My parents told me his story.
When they switched out the light,
I lay in bed quivering with joy
at the idea that Hector existed.
His enemies were tenacious.
And powerful.
Yoav?
It's me.
Yes.
Let me see you.
How are you?
Alive.
Alive!
You know I don't understand French.
No Hebrew, sorry.
Never again.
Have you gone mad?
I thought French women
were more beautiful.
No breasts.
Hidden under their clothes.
I'm from Israel.
Jewish!
Thanks. And the peanuts?
The Greeks besieged Troy for nine years
and failed to conquer it.
That's the story my parents told me
when I was 4 years old.
Hector was the hero of Troy,
while Achilles
was the Greeks' greatest warrior.
Who won?
Thanks!
After nine years,
they met for a decisive combat.
Hector's wife begged him to stay home.
Nobody could fight Achilles!
Finding himself opposite Achilles,
even brave Hector shook in terror.
He started running.
Running?
He ran? Ran away?
Nine times, they ran around
the walls of Troy
Achilles in pursuit, Hector in flight.
So you were for the coward.
Do not look up.
Do not look up.
My mile, my love.
Caroline who saved my life.
Did I tell you both
how I played the machine gun
and perforated an Arab terrorist?
At the border post on the mountain,
there was a machine gun.
I was the guy who carried it.
I disassembled it and reassembled it.
Nothing more.
Boredom.
A new commander came to the fort.
A philosopher.
He contemplated Beirut and Damascus
from the mountaintop
and, like me,
he prayed for war to break out.
That crazy commander
taught me to play the machine gun.
The machine gun's trigger
is ultra-sensitive.
The real test for the shooter
is to play Pink Floyd or...
Down!
Which song was it?
Which song was it?
Which song was it?
No idea.
mile?
Something Israeli? Something classical?
Sorry.
This is Yaron, whom I told you about.
He came here to save the Jews.
Michel.
Hello.
Give it to him!
Michel
Head of special operations.
Yes.
For Betar in Paris.
Twice a year,
we organize fights
against French Neo-Nazis.
It's dark.
We're armed with pitchforks
and they bring wolfdogs.
At the last fight,
I ripped apart a German dog
with my bare hands.
I'm in, Michel.
I'm thirsty for action.
My throat is parched. Ask my friend.
You need to know
it might end the hardest way.
Understand?
I have had friends killed.
Sunday,
4am, here.
Sportswear.
Until then...
You're coming too.
No.
He's precious material.
- Mr. and Mrs. Nir?
- Yes.
You can come in.
Come in.
Cross the border.
Go on, cross the border!
Security told them to wait.
People will not wait in the rain
for an Israeli agent
to deign to get his frizz wet.
Let's go! Cross the border!
Come in!
- Thank you.
- It's my pleasure.
Cross! Everybody, come in!
There is no border!
No more border!
None!
No border!
None!
Go inside!
Come on, go inside!
All of you! Everybody inside!
Everybody inside!
Ma'am, go inside!
Go in, all of you!
I had a sense, in the street,
of being followed.
See anyone?
Caroline.
Guess which instrument.
She plays oboe
at the local conservatory.
She is tragically infatuated
with the instrument. You hear it?
Playing oboe in the local orchestra
is as close as can be
to growing potatoes.
Before we met,
she'd hang out in bars and nightclubs.
She was capable of fucking anyone.
Students, doctors,
teachers.
In the elevator with a stranger.
Caroline?
There was no need even
to seduce her with words.
She'd just tell them, come on.
She humiliated them.
And was humiliated.
For whatever they produced
with their tongues.
For all the tastes of sperm.
There was this one guy.
Old. Gave up everything for her.
A total mediocrity except for his desire.
And you?
Me? And you?
Me?
Whenever opportunities arose...
I'm gone.
We're going.
I'm going to see Yaron.
The tough guy who brawls in tourist bars?
I shall run no more from you,
says Hector to Achilles,
after nine laps of the city walls.
His legs trembled but he stood still.
And then?
My parents lost their nerve,
unable to go on.
They shut and hid the book
so Yoav, age 4, would forget Hector.
Hector, the person he loved most
in the world, who soon...
would croak?
Would die, be killed.
Succumbing to the lance of Achilles,
who impales his feet on a chariot
and drags his corpse over the sand.
Only when Hector's aging father
pleads with Achilles in his camp
does the latter relent.
He lets him carry the dusty body
away on his back.
At home, my parents never again
talked to me about Hector.
I kept silent also.
For how long?
A few months later,
my parents had invited friends over.
Laughter wafted from the living room.
Suddenly Yoav, age 4, enters.
He looks like
he's emerging from a deep sleep.
He gazes at them with a severe gaze
until they fall silent, and he says,
You can have all the fun you want
but I know that Hector is dead.
Male, young, handsome,
braw
Male, young, handsome, brawny,
happy to serve as artists' model...
Devour, eat,
eat everything, eat the entire city.
Now you come, the bad thoughts?
When I'm hungry
and my stomach's empty?
Today's special:
Rib of beef, 30 euros.
Plain croissant, butter croissant,
almond croissant, chocolate croissant.
Hot chocolate, chocolate mousse,
chocolate pancake,
chocolate pancake with banana.
Why didn't you dash naked into the street
the night we found you?
You wanted to die?
With you and all your stories,
he feels banal.
Stop it, Caro.
Boredom structures me.
And France, France...
It's ridiculous.
Do you know anything about France?
Or anyone in France except us two?
Cline Dion.
Isn't it ridiculous?
Your weird French, where's it from?
The pump!
A week ago,
the bathroom sink was blocked.
I knocked on doors,
Sorry can you help me?
An old man appears.
I'm Yoav, Y-o-a-v, your neighbor.
A pump perhaps?
He gets a pump.
I found the word here.
- Pump attendants are pump stars.
- Be right back.
Go ahead, keep going.
- I'll go buy a sandwich.
- And one for me?
And for the monk. He's starving.
You okay?
Tell me,
I love you.
Not here.
Cavern, titan, oxygen,
antenna, mantra, refrain, ritornello,
rerun, rehash, cavern, cave, hole,
tuberculosis, lung, lung.
Oblige, obliged, enrage,
pillage, ravage, derange.
Damned, blade, iron, my mother, tripe.
Trick, trick, sweetish, sweetish, gray.
Sweetish, sweetish, grayish, grayish.
Ageist, psychiatrist, purplish.
Tripe, trick, type, gripe, trick, type.
I was passing by.
How did you know where I live?
It really is small.
Sorry about the smell,
I was making something to eat.
250g of pasta
with cream and crushed tomatoes?
mile made it once
for us to taste but...
he added capers.
Can I taste it?
I thought about trying to teach Hebrew.
By the way, about my model ad,
somebody called.
An artist or a pervert?
An artist or a pervert?
mile says there are
no more perversions in the world.
They've vanished.
I have no choice...
mile asked me to convince you
to accept more money from him.
He's afraid you'll vanish.
Would you like me
to introduce you to a friend of mine?
She plays in the orchestra with me.
A pretty brunette.
As they say.
I have no money for her.
When I saw you, frozen in the bath...
I knew we'd sleep together.
If you stayed alive.
Listen, mile...
I've decided to give you my stories.
I'll make nothing of them.
They're all yours.
Michel, Yaron, the balcony,
the pump, my hunger, the bath.
I'm also giving you the Israeli stories.
The army, the violin.
I wrote up the violin already.
I was going to tell you.
Take my father in the fort.
Take me in the fort,
take the corpses on the rocks.
Take the dead, the wars.
My whole life story is yours.
Prepare to order arms.
Order arms!
The silver star ceremony.
Prepare to present arms.
Present arms.
A military cemetery.
Prepare to order arms.
Order arms.
My parents in the audience.
The Commander steps up
to give a speech.
"Before I decorate these brave soldiers,
let me tell you, fathers and mothers,
to me you're the real heroes.
Okay, pretty solemn guy.
A sudden laugh erupted.
A thunderous, booming, shattering laugh.
My mother's laugh.
Everybody, soldiers and parents
turns to see
the woman who laughs at the Colonel.
I just shrivel.
The slaps we get from our parents.
She wanted to save me
from their sickness.
I have nothing for you in return.
My life is boring.
You have given me enough.
Tell me something. Your name but...
With desire.
Yoav.
With violence.
Yoav.
You can take off your pants.
Okay? Cold?
You can take off your briefs.
Angry face.
Concentrating face.
Count to ten.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...
Now...
Say, I'm on fire.
I can't hold back any longer.
I try to hold back but...
I can't
I'm on fire.
I try to hold back but...
What?
I'm on fire!
I can't hold back.
I try to hold back but I can't!
I'm on fire. I try to hold back...
I can't.
Here...
Sit down.
Touch yourself.
Touch yourself on your thigh.
Inside your thigh.
I never masturbate.
Put your hand on your penis.
You're beautiful.
Now...
Stand up.
Lie on your back.
And put your feet there.
- Hey, Yasmina.
- Hi.
Could you slip a finger in your anus?
Tell me that feels so good.
It's divine.
I love it.
I finger myself
and it feels so good.
Use words that are more...
My cock, my...
My instrument...
My instrument is growing
bigger and bigger.
It's becoming as hard as a sword.
Be gentle, be gentle.
I desire you. You make me hard.
You make me...
You give me a boner.
You give me a boner so easily.
Yes, it's beautiful with your accent.
Now say it in your own tongue.
Say what you just said
but in your own tongue.
Say it in, what is it?
Hebrew.
Say it in Hebrew.
What for?
For me.
But in any event
you won't understand.
No matter. I want the sound.
Go on.
That's good.
That's fun.
Groan. Say more words.
It's good!
Other words! You already said that.
It's good! Yes!
It's good!
Zetov, you said already!
Cock!
Yes! Cock!
Cock! Cock!
What am I doing here?
What am I doing here?
Cock!
- Cock! What the hell am I doing?
- Great! Wonderful!
Cock! Cock! Fuck instrument!
Fuck! Fuck you!
Fucking you!
What am I doing here?
That's great! More! Yes!
Cock! Cock! Run away!
- Wonderful!
- Run away! Run! Go!
More! Yes!
Run! Save yourself! Cock!
Cock! Cock!
Wonderful!
Cock!
Okay, we're done.
Okay.
I'm at Charles de Gaulle airport.
Here to take you home.
It's Dad.
I hear you live in a shoebox.
You don't eat.
You didn't even call us once.
You freaked out at the Embassy.
They told us about it.
Let me see you.
Anything happen I don't know about?
Your mother thought maybe in the army?
Let Mom and I help you.
Come for a week in Israel.
You're not well.
Thank you.
Money?
- I won't take it.
- Don't be stupid.
We had lunch
and he wanted you to buy food, too.
What did he say?
He wasn't very talkative.
When I said you wouldn't come,
he hunched on his chair in silence.
I talked a little about me.
I liked your father.
From your mother.
Vitamins.
I don't want them. Take it.
You're cruel.
Gosh.
Your father said you won a silver star.
I said you told us about Hector
and them keeping the end from you.
I saw tears in his eyes.
Hello.
Please may I have a chicken panini?
- Could you warm it through?
- Sure.
He worries about you rejecting Hebrew.
He says giving up your language
kills part of yourself.
Really?
He told you about his father?
Top student at bible school in Lithuania,
but a rebel.
He gave it all up
to go to Palestine under the British,
a land of swamps and of...
- Of what?
- Epidemics.
- Your panini, sir.
- Thanks.
His idealistic, sensitive brother's suicide
after emigrating, that didn't stop him.
His family waved him off,
and was exterminated in the Holocaust.
In Israel, he spoke Hebrew,
rejecting Yiddish,
the language of his youth.
He said he'd never speak the language,
in which he was beaten.
You do the opposite!
Really? I think my grandfather
would do exactly the same as me.
Is he still alive?
No.
Mine is, but nobody talks to him now.
I have to go.
I wanted to see you for myself
so I can tell your mother you're fine.
Are you okay?
We're both early.
You said it was important.
Caroline and Yoav...
I brought you together here today
to announce your wedding.
I've been thinking about it a while.
Now it is time.
You can become French
and stay in Paris your whole life.
We need to move fast
to start the naturalization process.
I called my uncle, who's at city hall.
There's a slot tomorrow, at 1:30,
if you're both free.
Others wait months
but we are children of god.
I have a rehearsal at 3 tomorrow.
My love, marrying is faster than fucking.
I'm free.
I'll call my uncle.
City hall, tomorrow 1:30.
That's when I rush in and say I object.
The rooster is French. Why?
Why?
Because it is brave and strong.
And gets up early.
Past tense now.
The rooster was brave.
The rooster was brave.
The rooster was strong.
And got up early.
Future tense.
The French rooster will be brave,
will be strong and will get up early.
Integration courses
became mandatory in 2002.
Not everybody gets a French passport.
If you're a murderer,
if you're a trafficker,
if you jumped the Metro turnstile
without permission...
Monsieur Keita, lovely name.
I have Keitas every day.
You must make an effort.
You'll be asked questions.
How many counties?
How many city halls?
How many presidents in the 5th Republic?
De Gaulle,
Pompidou, Giscard d'Estaing
whom you can call Valry,
Mitterrand, Chirac, Sarkozy,
Hollande, Macron.
The name of our national anthem?
La Marseillaise.
Who will read the words?
You?
My name is Elyne. I come from Taiwan.
- Are you shy?
- Not at all.
We're all ears, Elyne.
Arise, children of the fatherland!
The day of glory has arrived
Against us stands tyranny
With its bloody standard raised
Do you hear across the meadows
The roar of those fearsome soldiers?
They advance into our midst
To slit the throats of our sons
and your consorts
Take up arms, citizens!
Make up your battalions!
Let's march!
So that impure blood
Irrigates our fields!
And you, second verse?
Yoav, Israeli,
persecuted by Israeli security.
If I may, a little bit louder, please.
Sacred love of the fatherland
Lead and support our avenging arms!
Liberty! Beloved liberty!
Fight alongside your defenders
Under our banner, let victory...
Under our banner, let victory
Jump to your manly voice
May your fallen enemies
See your triumph and our glory!
Louder, please! Louder!
Take up arms, citizens!
Make up your battalions!
Let's march!
Let's march!
So that impure blood
Irrigates our fields!
So that impure blood
Irrigates our fields!
Darling! The guy
who's going to crown you.
A real rifle, buddy.
The Israeli soldier.
Yasmina, the Palestinian.
Y-o-a-v.
Yoav.
My name's Yoav.
That's your real name?
I come from Lebanon.
You're from Israel?
I grew up there.
So we won't be able to talk.
My grandfather
lived in southern Lebanon.
Get undressed, biblical hero.
I'll be right back.
You enrolled in the Foreign Legion?
Yes.
But I fled before the first gunshot.
Sorry, I can't invite you in.
There's a reception at the factory.
This feels really awkward.
I need you
to give my stories back.
Sure.
Take them back.
They're nothing special.
But they're mine.
Thanks for your honesty.
Generosity has its limits too, right?
We have no choice but to stop all this.
Now?
After we married?
I sense mile has had enough.
What if he has?
You discussed it?
This situation disgusts me.
My gazelle.
Now you. Israel!
Sing.
In the Jewish heart
Jewish spirit still sings
And the eyes look east
Toward Zion
Our hope is not lost
Our hope of 2,000 years
- Thank you.
- Wait!
Free in our land
Of Zion and Jerusalem
If you remember one date, that one!
The separation of church and state.
Secular, secular, secular.
In France, no one asks you
your religion.
In France,
no one talks about their religion.
Two months ago,
a man prayed out on the lawn.
The janitor took a photo.
We dealt with him.
Here, no money goes to religions.
No money to churches,
mosques or synagogues.
Money is for education, not religion.
Because there is no religion.
Because there is no god.
Because god does not exist.
Women have the right to choose
who they marry.
True or false?
True or false?
True.
If a woman disagrees with her husband,
he can beat her.
True or false?
False.
Women are smarter than men,
but men unfortunately
are stronger than women.
Every three days in France,
a woman dies at her husband's hands.
You arrive home to find your wife
in bed with another man or woman.
You can kill her.
True or false?
False.
If your son is attracted to men,
you slaughter him.
True or false?
False.
France upholds freedom of speech
and opinion for all.
- True or false?
- True.
The Republic's values
are only valid for French citizens.
- True or false?
- False.
I have to go.
Thanks for the invitation.
I hope it wasn't too arduous.
I have nothing good to say.
The music you people played
is inadmissibly admissible.
The more I listened,
the more desolation overwhelmed me.
That is why I am leaving.
Sir!
What you just said and the
manner in which you said it...
was frankly very rude.
Indeed it is a good idea for you...
You want to fight?
Calm down.
Why not?
- Come on.
- Let me go.
Fight for your music.
Allow me to introduce the Israeli rooster
I told you about.
For six months he's been amusing us.
France upholds free speech for all.
True?
False?
Mr. Cello, if a woman
disagrees with her husband...
He wants Brussels sprouts.
He demands them!
She says, No!
Never! I abhor Brussels sprouts.
The husband is allowed to beat her.
True?
Or false?
However smart she is.
True?
Or false?
Ms. Violin,
women are allowed
to choose who they marry. True?
False?
Choose only guys who accept
the Republic's values. True?
Or false?
If your sons loved men,
you'd ignore them or talk to them?
Slaughter them or not slaughter them?
Speak without fear.
Say whatever comes to mind!
One moment, we have not finished.
We have a long story.
The rooster wakes early,
the rooster's democratic...
B-B! B-B!
Ms. Oboe...
I came to save you all.
Do you not understand?
A great nation is sinking.
I understand.
You understand what?
Why you didn't dash naked
into the street.
You think you're acting mad.
You are mad!
Is that how a woman talks to her husband?
That woman is married to me.
Do you know?
She did me an act of grace
by taking me as her husband
Don't go thinking I'm ungrateful.
People of France, look at me!
You saved me once.
Now I have come to save you all.
The Republic's sinking!
A tiny leak getting bigger and bigger.
Even me, when I arrived here...
the drain of the bath tub swallowed me.
Michel is dead.
Too bad.
It's Yoav.
mile, it's Yoav.
I know you're home.
I came to say goodbye.
We are friends above all.
You're sending me back to a country
whose fate is sealed.
You have no idea
how lucky you are to be French.
This film is dedicated
to its editor, my mother, Era Lapid.