Stranger will not understand: "The Appendix" effectively describes the isolation of a foreigner in a foreign city

Eli Ben David's drama ("Night Doll") relies on his true story as he moved with his family to Paris following his wife's work, illustrating what happens when the sense of foreignness in the city is unfamiliar with real physical horror

Stranger will not understand: "The Appendix" effectively describes the isolation of a foreigner in a foreign city

The small screen has given us a lot of works over the years, dealing with fish out of water, a man who comes to a foreign place and has to find his place. Often this is a starting point for comedy about cultural gaps, or a heartwarming drama about building human bridges. In "The Appendix," HOT's new drama, Its Great Highness is how it distills the concept's dark hues.

The series is based on the true story of comedian Eli Ben David ("Night Doll," "We're on the Map") who wrote, directed and starred in it. His character in the series is Avshalom Cohen, an Israeli musician married to Jewish France, Annabelle (Eloise Goode) and both live in Israel with their little son. When Annabelle accepts a prestigious job offer as an annex to the Israeli embassy in France that requires them to move to Paris for a year, Avshalom agrees and finds himself facing an unfamiliar world, in every sense.

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In collaboration

Floods the fear and disconnect. Eli Ben David and Eloise Goode, "The Appendix" (Photo: Ohad Romano)

Appendix, Eli Ben David, Eloise Goode (Photo: Ohad Romano, PR)

Upon landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport in November 2015, when Avshalom reunites with his wife, he discovers that a bodyguard has been affixed to her sensitive office. Later that evening, as if to immediately isolate him in this beautiful and alien city, he is fired from his work in Israel. Minutes later, a turbulent Paris attack is combined with a number of locations, in which it turns out that 130 people are murdered. The self-evident disorientation and fears become real and tangible horror. Not only because the terrorist attack is in full swing, but because Avshalom himself has a Mediterranean look just like those suspected of terrorist acts. Anxiety comes from his eyes as he looks at others, just as he does from others when they look at him.

At that time, in Israel, too, brown and dark-skinned were the focus of suspicious looks while fearing other browns themselves. Terrible tragedies have been born of these lineages, lynches and lynchers. I mean, the "appendix" describes a complex subject that must not go as far as Paris to describe it. But this other position evokes any other sense of "otherness" that overwhelms fear and disconnection.

Isolation in a foreign city. "Appendix" (screenshot)

Appendix, Eli Ben David, Eloise Goode (Photo: Screenshot)

This whole thing is described without too much whistle. The "Appendix" is about experiences known to us as sons of the nation for the purpose of sabotaging events, and also does not hesitate to showcase the realization of fear, as happens in a horrifying fantasy scene in the second episode, which will be aired tonight (Thursday). But the "appendix" explicit approach is its main source of interest. Cousin wins a well-crafted work - great directing, photography and editing that harness Paris's beauty to populate it with bubbling panic and restlessness.

On the face of it, it looks like a microcosm for the whole of Europe today, or at least the way it is perceived by Israeli eyes. But even more, the "appendix" is turning its face inward. Effectively, the series assimilates us with the irrational fear that can take over when in a foreign land and not speak its language. Unfamiliar language isolates us and leaves us disconnected within our world and our fears. Absalom's justified fear is largely an allegory for any similar experience, to this familiar concept of the fish out of water, and thus sharpen the so-human sensations that the "annex" puts on its front.

Turns her face in. "Appendix" (screenshot)

Appendix, Eli Ben David (Photo: Screenshot)

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"The Appendix" airs Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8:15 PM on HOT3.