To See If I’m Smiling
Sunday, 4:15 pm, Regal Downtown #3
Director: Tamar Yarom
Writer: Tamar Yarom
Running Time: 60 min
This eye-opening documentary from filmmaker Tamar Yarom presents the lives of six young women soldiers serving in the occupied territories and Gaza Strip. Using a combination of direct-to-camera monologues and archival footage, the film depicts the harsh realities of what few women elsewhere are asked to do as they serve their mandatory time in the Israeli army.
The filmmakers provide little context to the women’s lives before their draft, although shots of barrack-room playfulness smartly convey that they are just like everyone else their age. None come from extraordinarily privileged or impoverished backgrounds, nor have any apparently developed a particular political agenda. Rather, it is just something that they, as Israeli Jews, must do for their country.
Yet, after witnessing coerced confessions and officers cover-ups, the women begin questioning the morality of duty as they fight to maintain some semblance of humanity. Each subject struggles in her own way to deal with the reality of her involvement in such questionable activities. Some turn to drink; others carry a rage that may yet affect their entire lives.
Interspersed with intimate interviews are heartrending shots of the downtrodden territories, which have become a virtual war zone in recent years. The faces of these emotionally scarred soldiers, recent memories still very much alive in their eyes, speak louder than any of their disturbing and horrific words. The film takes its title from a medic who looks nauseous as she admits that she’d like to find the photo taken of her and the body of a dead man with an erection “to see if I’m smiling.”
Tamar Yarom studied film at the London Film School and psychology at the Hebrew University. Her diploma films were screened at festivals around the world. Her documentary credits include Laundry and Witches. Her feature debut Sob Sister won the Best Drama Award at the 2002 Haifa Festival. Shown with Hamdi and Maria (2008, Timor Britva), an Israeli short film that follows a young girl, the collateral victim of an Israeli bomb, as she is cared for by her father in an Israeli hospital.
