Victorious

A former Israeli army psychologist questions her ideals in Sarid’s unsparing latest (after The Memory Monster). Abigail, now working in private practice with veterans, is called back to service by the army’s chief of staff. “These are gentle kids, we never taught them how to kill,” he tells her. She realizes to her horror that war is imminent just as her only child, Shauli, is enlisting with an elite combat unit. As she becomes more entwined with the military’s mission, and even implicated in its violent means, her ailing father, a legendary psychoanalyst, admonishes her for how far she’s strayed from the profession’s morals: “You don’t treat people.... You are a servant of power.” For Abigail, the world is divided between the weak and the strong, and she’s aligned herself with the victors. That is until the war begins and she gets a distressing phone call from Shauli’s battalion about his mental condition. She finds him dazed and desperate to leave, and Sarid incisively lays bare the contradictions between her professional training, patriotic zeal, and recognition of the war’s effect on her son. Sarid’s frank portrayal of the emotional scars bore by successive generations of Israelis is sure to provoke strong feelings. (Sept.)