Doc/Fest Blog
Defamation this week
By Charlie Phillips 11 January, 2010
No messing about. I urge you with a lot of force to watch Defamation tomorrow on More4.
It's one of my favourites of 2009, in which Israeli director Yoav Shamir, prize-winning director of the amazing Checkpoint, steps out in front of the camera to investigate anti-semitism in the non-Israeli world. Mainly in the USA, through the eyes of the anxious attack dogs of the Anti-Defamation League, but also via Norman Finkelstein, and a group of Israeli young people visiting Poland.
Shamir has previously been known for a straight verite style, observing the interactions between people full of enmity without any intervention. In Defamation though, he's our presenter, and it's not a style he seems entirely comfortable with. He's charismatic, sure, but he's also not sure what he's doing, and I love that. He's genuinely confused about what people say to him and how he feels, and you would not get that from a 'normal' on-screen guide who wants to anchor us in their persuasive rhetoric. Shamir isn't Nick Broomfield. He's more Louis Theroux, but without any knowing devices to get people to say things they'll regret. They just do it anyway, because he's apparently really not sure what to say to them. So they talk themselves into a frenzy.
And who can blame Shamir for his confusion? Antisemitism is a complex world of oral nuance that can break even the most schooled of people, and Shamir bounces between speakers with agendas who swing between over-careful pronouncements and wild bizarre accusation. Shamir is visibly shocked at times - the doc gives new life to the old cliche of the voyage of discovery. Shamir claims that he made the film in response to a life in Israel which was for him entirely shielded from antisemitism. He thinks the concept is now an exclusively diasporic obsession, and it's become the defining feature of modern Jewish identity.
So he asks key figures who are obsessed with either antisemitism or the lack of it what it means to them. What they say might appall and depress you - Abe Foxman from the ADL especially is a loose cannon of paranoia, albeit (probably) coming deep deep down from a place of genuine concern. But Shamir's triumph is to make a doc that easily resets the agenda of intra-Jewish dichotomies of Zionist vs Not and Diaspora vs Israel, by showing us the verbal misunderstandings and misuse of words that run over all sides. No more so than when the group of Israeli young people are whipped up by their trip leaders and by each other into verbal confusion, ignorance and finally, shocking anger.
It's a very clever film which doesn't judge, but comes out of a complex agenda which is above all for speaking with honesty and not misusing words to stir up conflict. I think this is a really important film beyond its initial context so watch it and see for yourself.