Shtisel’s Sasson Gabay’s racy new role
The Israeli actor's talent is on full display in the UK Jewish Film Festival’s opening gala movie. We got close-up and personal with him
Brigit Grant is the Jewish News Supplements Editor
For some time now, years in fact, cinema has neglected older people. Likely dubbed ‘the teatime crowd’ by some joker in studio marketing, this term would apply to anyone with a senior travel card who attends afternoon screenings. What they really are is cinema’s ‘lost audience’ and it’s a group that’s growing as more disillusioned 50-somethings, and others even younger, struggle to share cinema’s obsession with superhero franchises and gaming spin-offs. And it’s not because they’re superannuated or can’t handle 120 decibels. They’ve been awake longer than the ‘woke’, it’s just the films they enjoy: grown-up drama, relatable romance and thought-provoking themes with accessible characters are as rare as good shop-bought chopped liver.
Thankfully we’ve reached that time of year when the UK Jewish Film Festival provides a roster of movies for all forsaken cinephiles and this year’s opening gala film, Karaoke, is a consummate example.
Best described as an unfeigned adult comedy that will challenge anyone who ever had a dream, first-time feature director and writer Moshe Rosenthal has taken what began as a personal familial story and created a tale about an elderly couple’s humdrum existence and the stranger who challenges them. Essentially, it’s about the fear of being ordinary. Or not.
Set in a smart suburban apartment block, Karaoke relies heavily on its cast to provide the colour and the clashes, and Rosenthal chose his gifted actors – Lior Ashkenazi and Rita Shukrun – wisely and placing Sasson Gabai at the helm as stoic and conditioned husband Meir means we get to witness a masterclass in emotion. To reconnect on the big screen with the actor who tormented and beguiled us on the small screen as avaricious Nuchum Shitsel is exciting, particularly as the finale of beloved series Shtisel was made and aired during the pandemic, so we cried alone in lockdown .
Impressively a then 70-year-old Sasson had been starring in The Band’s Visit on Broadway and on tour before Covid struck. Although Mrs Maisel’s Tony Shalhoub originated the role of orchestra leader Tewfiq in the musical, it always belonged to Sasson, as he created the character in the 2007 movie about an Egyptian police band that gets stranded in a sleepy Israeli town. It was, however, as controlling Nuchum (brother of Shulem) that we got to appreciate this actor’s craft, which is present in every look and response he brings to Meir, who gets to see the life he might have led when he is befriended by flashy new tenant Itzik (Ashkenazi), who also charms and flirts with his wife Tova (Shukrun).
A performance of this calibre requires discussion and audiences will do so after seeing Karaoke. But having got to know the Shtisel cast over three seasons meant I got to talk to Sasson ahead of his appearance at the Festival gala on 10 November.
He certainly looked happy to see me, but his beaming face on Zoom was really due to Karaoke’s rave reviews as it has just opened in Israel. “They are wonderful. Really wonderful. About the film, about the acting, about us. The film has become a must-watch by word of mouth. It means we have done something right.”
There’s certainly no disguising how proud he is of his own performance, in spite of initial reservations about accepting the role. “ When I read the script, I thought it was very interesting, but I wasn’t sure. I realised it very much depended on how I played the part and doing so meant deciphering Meir’s hidden secrets that weren’t in the script. I was also a bit worried about the director, Moshe, as I knew nothing about him, but his writing showed he was an artist and Lior had already made a short film with him and confirmed his talent. So we made it mutually conditional through our agents that both Lior and I would each do it if the other one did.”
Accepting of his tedious lot after a long marriage to a woman harbouring fanciful aspirations and petty jealousies, Meir is complicated and Baghdad-born Sasson was disconcerted by all the emotional exposure in close-up, as well as the racier scenes he would later see for the first time sitting beside his wife, author and screenwriter Dafna Halaf-Gabai.
“We were at Tribeca Film Festival and suddenly the screen was there. And I was, well you know, in a way, I was a little bit embarrassed. By the amount of exposure that I’m given. And my wife, well she looked at me during those intimate scenes and she was a little bit confused. And embarrassed.”
With no spoilers, this bit of our chat will entice you to see Karaoke, and Sasson makes it very clear that: “Meir is not me. My life is like a rollercoaster. I did four projects (Apple TV’s We Crashed, Dikla Barkai’s Menagen VeShar, Oslo, Karaoke) during Covid, so my life is different to Meir’s. But apparently I’ve got elements of his personality in me.”
Now acknowledged globally for its films and TV series, Israel’s most impressive talent is making the mundane compelling. Restricted by small budgets, creatives have to think outside the box, and this is reflected in the simplicity of Shtisel. Shot in one room, on one street and with no frills, it is all about the characters and the writer’s imagination. And Nuchum, like Meir, also had unfulfilled dreams that were so memorably conveyed when he conducted Mahler’s music on the apartment balcony.
“I also think there is a world filled with people like Meir who feel they haven’t done enough in their life, because they were scared or too careful. Whatever life you live, you still ask yourself, ‘could I have done more?’. We all would have welcomed more Shtisel, but it is not to be, though the cast do see one another occasionally.
“I saw Michael Aloni in April at the wedding of Yehonatan Indursky, who co-wrote Shtisel. It was a combination of secular and orthodox as he came from an orthodox background. Doval’e (Glickman) was there and he is doing Zehu Ze!, the weekly variety show, and was in Munich Games (Sky). And at another wedding I saw the woman who plays Akiva’s mother-in-law. So we see each other from time to time. Tel Aviv is a small place.”
It may be small but it’s big on talent that can be seen at the UK Jewish Film Festival. ukjewishfilm.org
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