Teaser for the series "Bash and Water" by Hanan Savion and Guy Amir/Netflix
The launch of "Bros" (in English: "Bros") was supposed to be a great victory for Hanan Savion and Guy Amir: after hits like "Asfor", "Mahila" and "Makatub", the two old partners qualified for another summit with the second Israeli-international series Ever on Netflix (after Hit and Run). But then October 7th arrived, the war broke out, and the series that was planned to air at the beginning of November was postponed. Now, amid the ongoing echoes of the war, it finally appears on the streaming service, with a much less festive welcome than it deserved.
"Bash and Water" unfolds the story of Pini and Niso, two Jerusalemites, childhood friends, who in their adulthood manage a pub called "Pinions", which is identified with Beitar Jerusalem fans. The plot takes place in the summer of 2008, when the team had the opportunity to advance to the Champions League, and was drawn to play in the qualifiers against Wisla Krakow. However, between the two games against the Poles, there are no less dramatic things on the agenda: Finny and his partner finally manage to get pregnant, which raises questions about the possibility of continuing his wild lifestyle, while Niso discovers a spot suspected to be a terminal tumor, similar to the one that killed His father at a very young age. New financial circumstances - a dramatic increase in the pub's rent and business rivals who are biting customers, bring the two to a crossroads: Finney considers selling the business and starting a family life in Moshav, and they tried - exactly the opposite: intends to fight for the pub and even aims to expand him, to save at all costs what for him may be the only thing he leaves behind in the world.
From then on, between Finny trying to reset himself and his attempts to lose control, a sequence of romantic, criminal and sporting events begins, ranging between Jerusalem and Krakow with the passionate fans of the team - which usually, to put it mildly, are not represented in the media in a flattering way, but here are described here As a cohesive community, rough indeed, but also touching. With them, the series celebrates the most beautiful thing in sports - what it does to the fans off the field, who are committed, loyal and travel with the team wherever needed, from YMCA to Teddy, excited, disappointed and celebrating. Hence the slogan that gave the series its Hebrew name: "In fire and water, Beitar Jerusalem".
Savion and Amir come to this series as polished comedy creators with a great and almost automatic chemistry, which goes with them for years and sweeps crowds to the cinemas and screens with it. The formula they present here is a familiar one: a human mixture that is built from the most basic ingredients of Israeli existence - sectarian tension (It's impossible without a joke about the Ashkenazi food, a ritual in itself) and my status (the people from the neighborhood in front of the cream kids of the world, who even if you knock them are actually doing them a favor, as it were, since they have insurance anyway), and quite a bit of bending the limits of the law and far beyond it There is also some action, some pyrotechnics, a lot of romance and a lot of shots of the beautiful streets of Jerusalem. The acting is not always uniform, the dialogues are sometimes not successful, but in the end it is a series that is clearly made by people who love television. the other
You can experience "Bash and Water" as a crime comedy, but this definition doesn't necessarily do it any favors. At this level, "In Fire and Water" does not innovate much, and is not even that funny. Although it is rhythmic and full of events and twists, from hooligan fights to encounters with a multitude of criminals of various kinds, and it raises a smile from time to time, but inside it, more than a comedy, is a very sad series about the fear of death and the crisis of masculinity at the age of 40. In fact, the real axis of the series It's how cancer crumbles everything stable in Nissoo's world, and the possibility of a bourgeois life makes Finny reconsider everything he's known. The two eternal children become required at the same time to deal with time, with what they pass on, and with the obligations that are required of them. Thus, "In Fire and Water" is at its best when it allows its heroes to acknowledge their fears and traumas, not when they go to battle with the Jerusalem scarf seller who argued with them about the location of the tables of the bar next to her store.
And indeed, as the series progresses, it is revealed that "In Fire and Water" is actually very busy with a topic that you might not have expected in a comic series about football fans: the memory of the Holocaust in the third generation. For example, twice throughout the series, Finny describes the forgotten trauma of his grandmother from the days of the Nazi occupation in Tunisia, a rare expression of this historical story in Israeli culture, and later, when following the rematch against the Polish team the group arrives in Krakow, the heroes are overwhelmed by the weight of history, and in a moment of catharsis they arrive, completely By mistake, to the railroad that takes them to Auschwitz. A comedy of this type may fall into the trap of vulgarity in front of such a sensitive subject, but the result is quite original, which illustrates how the current Holocaust activates triggers and influences the world of Israeli concepts even from many decades away. In doing so, she joins a wave of series and films of various kinds that deal with the relationship of the third and fourth generations to the Holocaust and have flooded the screens in recent years, such as "Berlin Blues", "As long as in the heart", the docu "Journey to Poland" and the film "The Mission" which is expected to be released soon.
And after the historical drama, we return to the sports drama as well as the personal drama, both of which drain into the rematch, which was, as I remember, one of the heaviest defeats of an Israeli team in Europe. So yes, football is played for 90 minutes and at the end the Poles won, but those who walk together, through fire and water, will also come out stronger.