The Arena of Murder

This documentary by Amos Gitai is a personal look at the aftermath of the Rabin assassination. Pastiche filmmaking: Gitai reflects on the death of Yitzhak Rabin through a series of interviews with Rabin's widow, visits to an editing room where monitors display the funeral and the reenactment of the murder, car rides through Israel and the occupied territories with the camera simply recording what's out there, performances by rocker Aviv Gefen, poetry read by Efratia Gitai, and reflections on birds, courage, war, and memories of Rabin and his family by a small cast of Gitai's friends and acquaintances. Gitai calls it minimalist filmmaking. It's a movie as graffiti, exploring the biblical verse, "to every time, there is a season." —<jhailey@hotmail.com>