image1.jpeg PLAYOFF, 2011, directed by Eran Riklis, also director of 'The Syrian Bride' and 'Lemon Tree' ,two of the highest profile Israeli festival films of the past dozen years. This latest Riklis effort, filmed entirely in Germany with non-Israeli actors, featured American actor Danny Huston as "Max Soller" a legendary Israeli basketball coach of German origin, who returns to the country he fled 39 years before, to coach a stumbling German basketball team. This is basically a pretext to look into the painfully unclear history of his Jewish family under Naziism and leads to unpleasant discoveries and a confrontation with an unreformed ex-Nazi colleague. He coaches this second rate team with something like a feeling of vengeance often referring to a book the cover of which we see several times -- significantly, the autobiography of legendary NBA Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach who was very definitely Jewish and made no bones about it. An important subplot is his antagonistic relationship with a young German player who rebels against Soller's stern coaching style. We see a few hardwood clips but not very much as the Playoff in this picture is more about his confrontation with his past than with the other teams. At the end we are informed that the team he was coaching came in at a not very rousing eighth place in the 1984 German basketball league playoffs. The film is beautifully lensed, especially in the countryside scenes but is not terribly gripping like Mr. Riklis' previous successes. A thread of romantic tension is supplied by a very attractive Turkish woman who is befriended by Soller and is having problems with her residence status. This turns into a real teaser when she strips and offers herself to him, but he has too much on his mind do accept her nearly unrefusable offer. The suffocation of pent up emotions or something like that. The woman incidentally is played my mixed Kurdish English ancestry actress Amira Casar, best known for her ravishing central role in Catherine Breillat's hardcore sex opus "The Anatomy of Hell", 2004. Mr. Huston, son of legendary Hollywood director John Huston and half-brother of Angelica Huston, is on screen most of the time and is given innumerable facial closeups to reveal his sensitivity and inner conflicts. Problem is that Huston, while he does turn in a reasonably sensitive performance, does not exactly have the kind of A-level actor face we want to spend that much time examining in intimate microscopic detail. Huston does seem to have a certain appeal to Israeli directors as he also had a fairly large part in Ari Folman's astounding sci-fi mystifier. "The Congress".
The only thing about this picture that was Israeli was the director, and the background fact that the central protagonist is based on a real life Israeli Sports celebrity, although portrayed by a non-Jewish actor in English. Overall, interesting to watch but nothing to write home about. Amira Casar with her exotic beauty, however, is worth writing home about. image2.jpeg
The only thing about this picture that was Israeli was the director, and the background fact that the central protagonist is based on a real life Israeli Sports celebrity, although portrayed by a non-Jewish actor in English. Overall, interesting to watch but nothing to write home about. Amira Casar with her exotic beauty, however, is worth writing home about. image2.jpeg