MOMENTS (MOMENTS DE LA VIE D’UNE FEMME)

France/Israel, 1979, 96 minutes, Colour.
Michal Bat- Adam, Assi Dayan.
Directed by Michal Bat- Adam.



Moments is a French- Israeli co-production. The leading star was both writer and director and received assistance from the director of madam Rosa. The film is unusual in its presentation of relationships, both in a permissive manner and in traditional modes. The film is striking insofar as it was written and directed by a woman and shows a feminine sensibility, especially in women's relationships - both ordinary and with lesbian tones. The film is made in the French style - intimate sequences, the focus on the characters and their atmosphere, a close-up process. The setting is Israel and this is used to advantage. The film surfaces themes of relationships which are more of the subconscious and these are dramatised in a realistic situation for audiences to be sympathetic, understanding, make judgments.

1. The impact of the film - its themes, treatment? The unified work of the actress-writer-director? Her vision, her insight? Her cinematic skills?

2. The film as an Israeli- French co-production? the cultural atmosphere, the French tone, the Israeli setting and themes? Universal insight? The settings and their visual impact? the train travelling through Israel, Tel Aviv and its suburbs, Jerusalem and its exteriors, beauty and atmosphere, interiors?

3. Colour photography, beauty. musical score? How realistic, how contrived? The world of trains, the city, suburbia, homes, hotels, buses? The score?

4. The screenplay and the framework and its flashback? Audience interest in the situation, being arrested by the relationship between the two women, questioning presuppositions? An ordinary situation with unusual tones? The voice-over commentary and the indication of feeling, relationship? The house, the airport, the family, the children, the friend, the husband? The closeness of the two women? Audience wondering about the nature of the relationship and the move to flashback?

5. The film's presentation and exploration of love - both heterosexual and homosexual? Qualities of friendship, sharing, passion, jealousy, physical expression? The relationship between women? Talk, acting? Women and men? Experience and its irrevocability? Its influence on subsequent behaviour and attitudes?

6. The chance encounter of the two women on the train, their telling of their stories, sharing? The failed marriage, the heroine and her boyfriend? The writing of the book? The sequences in the hotel and their sharing experiences, the tour and the symbolic sequence in the cave with the candle?

7. Their clashes, jealousy? Their union? The transition of the heroine to Tel Aviv, the seeking out of Arvi? The jealousy about Anne and the night with the security man? The effect of these actions on each of them? Arvi and his entering into the picture? Sharing experiences? The erotic experience? uniting them but separating them? How each coped with the actions, with the memories? Arvi and his reluctance, Anne and her withdrawal?

8. The portrait of Anne and her intensity, passion, the outsider? The seductive manner with the heroine? Or vice versa? Her relationship with Arvi? Her return to France, her coming back to Israel after so many years, the reminders of intimacy, the impossibility of recapturing the past? The inevitability of her having to leave? What was she left with? The correspondence?

9. The heroine's life - wanting everything, her capacity, her being unfulfilled? Her letting Anne go, marrying Arvi, having the children? Her clutching of the past, its lack of success? Her final voice-over comments about her regrets, her nostalgia. the letters to Anne?

10. Arvi, the man in this woman's world, his not understanding, his participation, jealousy, anger, inability to cope?

11. The presentation of themes and their making sense or not? Complexities? By what criteria should attitudes and actions be judged? Behavioural, moral?