PLAYOFF

Israel/ Germany, 2011, 107 minutes, Colour.
Danny Huston, Amira Casar, Mark Waschke, Max Riemelt, Selen Savas.
Directed by Eran Riklis.

This seems like a film about basketball – and, in many ways, it is – it is far more a portrait of its central character as well an exploration of German memories of the Holocaust in World War II and of the effect on Germans who made their escape to Israel.

The film offers a fine performance by Danny Huston who won the best actor award at the Montréal Film Festival in 2011. In many ways it is a brooding performance. It portrays a successful basketball coach in Israel who is employed by the Germans in preparation for the Olympics of 1984. We see the German officials, wondering whether they had made the right decision, thinking of the political implications, the German memories of the war, the media latching onto an Israeli coach and questioning him as to his motivation for coming to Germany, even to achieve some kind of revenge.

While there are basketball sequences, and especially of the coaching and training, there is much more to the film. And, it is noted that the end, the Germany ranked eighth at the 1984 Olympics.

The coach revisits the areas of the city where he grew up, venturing in to look at the apartment, encountering the Turkish wife and daughter who live there, becoming part of their lives, his offer to hire a private detective to discover the husband who had abandoned them. This has a profound effect on the wife and, eventually, on the daughter. It also brings out the humanity in the coach, especially since he is considered a traitor in Israel, his mother and his wife and family not answering his phone calls.

They provide the opportunity for him to come to terms with himself, discover more of the truth about his childhood life, his blaming himself for his father’s death, the episode of stealing a cake and his father’s shame. As it turns out, the actual events were quite different from what he thought. And, with his father problems, he also has to confront the young man who is the captain of the basketball team, his soldier father committed suicide and who bears greater anger and resentment.

Sports fans will be surprised at how much deeper and significant the humane themes are.

The film was directed by the fine Israeli Dir, Eran Riklis (The Human Resources Manager, Shelter and, especially, The Lemon Tree).

1. A film from an Israeli director? With a German story? Memories of the 1940s? The Holocaust and escapes to Israel? The heritage for Germany? Questions remaining in the 1980s?

2. The German settings, the period, the city, the streets, the river, apartments, cake shops, atmosphere? Evoking memories of the 1940s? The musical score?

3. A basketball film? The story of the German team, preparing for the 1984 Olympics (and their coming eighth)? The hiring of the Israeli coach? The response of the team and hesitations? Of the captain and his animosity? Of the officials and their taking a risk? Of the media and their asking questions about the past, the coache’s possibility for revenge for the past?

4. Danny Huston as Max Stoller, screen presence, age, background in Israel, successful coaching? His being employed, his relationship with the officials, discussions, their challenges, the older official and his Nazi past? His motivation for going to Germany, to the city where he lived as a boy? Reviving memories, anxieties? The ironies of the final revelation about his mother and father?

5. The basketball, the team, the personalities of the members, Thomas and his leadership, his animosity, his memories of his father, soldier in the war, suicide? His anger, on the court? Defying Max? The discussions, Max not praising him, sending him off, dismissing him? Going to visit him in his home? Challenging him? Thomas’ challenges to Max? His finally playing?

6. Max, the phone calls to his family in Israel, his mother not answering, his wife not answering, the media calling him a traitor?

7. Max and his being interviewed by the television, the girl passing in the street, her insolence? His later return, going to the apartment where he grew up? Deniz and her story, her husband disappearing from Turkey, her coming to Germany with her daughter? Her cleaning toilets in hotels? Max and his meeting her, the discussions, the news about her husband, his decision to help, the hiring of a private detective to find the husband? The discussions, people priming through the windows, the graffiti on her door, the accusations? The bond between them? The outing in the countryside? The discovering her husband but do not saying? Her offering herself to Max, his refusal? The visit to the cake shop, her dismay? The revelation that her husband had married a German and they had a baby? Her life, her daughter’s life? The gift of the watch?

8. The officials, the risk in hiring an Israeli, the atmosphere of the times, working with Max, his irritability, letting his private concerns impinge on his work?

9. Max, the gradual revelation about his past, the stealing of the cake, the lady of the cake shop and her recognising him, the discussions? The revelation that she did not tell the father, that he paid for the cake? The fact that he was still alive? His wife betraying him, the escape to Israel? His silence, living all the years? Max and the discovery of the truth about his family, the shock? After helping Deniz with her husband, Thomas with his
father?

10. The portrait of a German Jew, the Holocaust, escapes, migrants to Israel and their treatment, growing up, the memories of the past, blaming himself for his father’s death? Returning to Germany, the search for the past? His discoveries?