ISRAELI FILM FESTIVAL: This is a movie of bad omens, long looks and not necessarily meaningful glances. It seems to be about sex, or a kind of sexual freedom, though no one here seems to have too much fun for too long. It all ends in blood and grief. The setting seems to be significant: a remote outpost of civilisation somewhere in Israel, a place of dust, and hard sun. This is where Tamar (Hagar Ben-Asher), mother of two and lover of many, makes her home. In another time and place she might have be thought of as a free spirit. But here she’s 'dangerous" – because men want (or is it need?) to control how she has elected to live. An old friend returns to Tamar’s village. He is Shay (Ishai Golan), a vet. Pretty soon the pair become lovers. They settle into a comfy rhythm of home making. Meanwhile, Tamar’s other suitors – with whom she enjoyed some emotionally uninvolving sex – look on dismayed, and bewildered.
The Slut is a movie where no secret stays exclusive; the characters here spend a lot of time sneaking around and spying. They watch one another through windows, and doors. No one says anything much.
Eschewing the conventions of clear motivation and psychological realism, Ben-Asher, who not only plays the lead but also writes and directs, has created a movie that’s part mood-piece, part existentialist poem. Shot in widescreen, in often very long takes, the pace is slow, the feel quiet, and yet there’s a sense of doom that surrounds this story. Though, it’s a weirdly detached experience; genuinely thought-provoking and yet remote. When it played in Cannes at Director’s Week in May this year a lot was made of both the films 'political content’ and the fact that Ben-Asher puts herself in frank sexual situations throughout the action.
Still, the sex scenes are shot in a way that seems deliberately un-erotic; there’s nudity, but no sense of emotional involvement. It’s like we’re being invited to scrutinise, to observe, and not get too involved with these people.
The feminist content is deeply intriguing but not necessarily secured to some kind of bold 'statement’. The movie is so emotionally bottled, so carefully designed and programmed, its dramatic centre seems mysterious and perhaps finally elusive. Or to put it another way, it’s not a movie that boldly announces what it’s 'really about’ but allows for multiple readings.
For starters, the title has to be some kind of ironic gag; everyone here seems to understand what they are doing and why, and no one is really, truly getting cheated, or betrayed. In a way the film seems to be a deliberate parody of the romantic melodrama, where the structure rotates a series of male suitors all of whom show promise for the femme hero as the potential best mate. Of course Ben-Asher 'blands’ out the men; aside from Shay, her lovers seem almost interchangeable. Meanwhile, Tamar’s desire to settle into domesticity seems more to do with some yearning for romantic love, not security. Still, Ben-Asher has Tamar 'cheat’ Shay with a former lover"¦ or is it really cheating? Is there some other code at work here? Is it using sex as a device to communicate something to do with identity and self-image?
All these questions become imponderables. In a way Ben-Asher sets up the first scene as a kind of warning"¦ a horse gallops, an image of freedom and speed. It then runs right smack into an oncoming vehicle, when it is knocked flat, landing which a sickening sound of grinding flesh on the bitumen. We never do find out what happened to that horse, or the driver. But that image is a shocker; it’s hard to shake and it hangs over the events of the movie like a bad nightmare.
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