A Night at the Movies

This week's Haveil Havalim is here. 
I love the theater. There is something magical about seeing real live people on the stage. Movie theaters on the other hand are noisy places where I usually don't enjoy myself. When I do watch movies, it is usually at home where I can get up in the middle and move around The last time I went to see a movie in a movie theater (not counting with my grandchildren during summer vacation) was when I went to see Yochai Rosenberg's "The Yard"  documentary in Tel Aviv. That was a lovely experience where we got to visit with the filmmaker and the film itself was a moving piece of Jerusalem experience.
Last night, my daughter and I went to see Joseph Cedar's new movie "Footnote" הערת שוליים which won the prize for best screenplay at the Cannes festival this year.

We both enjoyed the movie immensely. The story is about a father and son, competing for recognition. It's also about the academic world with its own special brand of jealousies and intrigues. It is believable and the main characters are well drawn. There are a few (but really very few) scenes about relationships that are not so well developed and maybe should have been left out. Mostly the story moved along smoothly playing off family relationships against academic rivalry, truth playing against love and loyalty. Can they coexist?
Add to the story a backdrop of great scenes in Jerusalem which strike a nostalgic chord and I am captivated. The professor walks from Rehavia to the Hebrew University through the valley which is today criss-crossed by roads, public buildings and whatnot but the film  ignores that. There are scenes in the Jewish National Library on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University as well as of the Rehavia neighborhood.
Something I usually don't notice is the background music in a movie but this time it just seemed to fit making the entire movie experience very pleasing.
Keep this up and I just might go to the movies again, one of these days.