Israeli director Nadav Lapid was thrust into the global cinematic stage with “The Kindergarten Teacher” and “Policeman.” However, with “Synonyms,” which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival this past January, Lapid should now be considered a formidable force in cinema.
Lapid constructs a loosely freewheeling narrative based on his own experiences as a former Israeli soldier who went to France for a new life, free of the politics ravaging his native country. The result is a sensational statement on identity, nationality and privilege.
“Synonyms” follows young Israeli ex-soldier Yoav (newcomer Tom Mercier in an energetic performance), who decides to move to Paris to escape Israel’s toxic politics. As soon as he arrives, Yoav wakes up naked in an empty apartment, and someone has stolen all of his belongings. In sheer panic he asks for the next door neighbors’ help and is soon taken in by the young beautiful French couple.
Yoav is so adamant at destroying his Israeli identity that he always has in his pocket a French dictionary; in fact, Yoav refuses to speak Hebrew, even answering back local Israelis in French as he desperately tries to escape his past. It’s not like he has the money to maintain this kind of bohemian lifestyle either, Yoav barely has any money and seems to be jumping from job to job until he lands one working as security at the Israeli embassy.
And so it goes that the near-plotless “Synonyms” rolls ahead, with Yoav stumbling into episodic dilemmas all in the while discovering that assimilating to a new culture is not as easy as he thought it would be. It doesn’t always work, with the first half neatly assembled and much more fluidly realized than the more messy but still passionate final hour.
And yet, Lapid’s film is one of the most unpredictable cinematic experiences you will have this year. His assured camera always moves along to Yoav’s unpredictable steps. The surreal journey is an indictment on not just Israeli machoism, but Parisian condescension as well, as Yoav realizes that with every culture can come different shackles of restraint. Of course, the main message Lapid is trying to give us is quite simple but indelibly powerful: Can you ever really escape the roots and societal DNA that you were born in?
Much like his other films, “Synonyms” is filled with Lapid’s dark absurdism. In Mercier, Lapid may have found the best possible muse to explore his own identity crisis on screen. The subtle jabs at his own country’s government and the frustrations Yoav inhabits can actually be applied to the French government as well. A notable scene has Yoav, quite ironically, proudly singing “La Marseillese” despite the lyrics being the kind of bloodthirsty patriotism that Yoav is trying to escape in Israel. It all passes right by him but not the audience watching.
If anything, what distinguishes “Synonyms” is the level of craftsmanship that Lapid brings. Aided by his usual director of photography, Shai Goldman, the film relentlessly hops from one scene to the next without giving us any time for breathing room, let alone to ponder the latest outrageous moment. Maybe a second viewing will smooth out the edges, but this is a film that leaps into the wild blue and dares us to leap along with it . The proposition is almost too hard to resist, no matter how rambunctiously messy it may be. [B-]
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