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The docu on Shoshana Damari is wonderful and exciting.

In the ending scene we could not help but choke on tears

In recent years, several documentary projects have been made on musical icons in Israel, and the excellent "Queen Shoshana" is one of them.

It is a rich portrait, which manages to touch on a range of subjects, and at the end, the thing we most wanted to do was listen to her immortal songs

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• Shoshana Damari

Nadav Menuhin

Tuesday, 06 July 2021, 09:07 Updated: 10:44

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Memorial service for Shoshana Damari (reporter: Sagi Ben Nun, photo: Niv Aharonson, editor: Marom Spitzer)

Ehud Manor, one of the greatest Hebrew songwriters, was a teenager at the Haifa Real School when he saw Shoshana Damari star in the musical "Shulamit" in the late 1950s. She was already a big star by then, which his late father still admired. Regardless, Manor wrote in a book that compiled a selection of his poems, "In Shoshana Damari I fell in love on my own ... as one falls in love in adolescence."

Next to these words, he paired "Sing with You", in a duet he wrote for her and Boaz Sharabi in the 80's, and only this year won the title of the all-time favorite duet in a special parade held at Walla! And eco99fm. The song, which is all a tribute to Damari's poetry, was opened by Manor in the words: "I wanted to thank you a long time ago - my songs sprouted long."

From the huge impression on the boy's manor to the parade held in the depths of 2021, this song is a beautiful example of how Damari, who has not been among the living for about 15 years, maintains her status as a great icon of life for about 80 years.

In Israel, where it sometimes seems that the collective memory is only getting shorter, and while many of the stars of its generation have long been forgotten, this is a rare phenomenon.

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First person.

Shoshana Damari - From the movie "Queen Shoshana" (Photo: From the movie "Queen Shoshana")

Now, in an attempt to crack her character, "Queen Shoshana" is coming up - a long and excellent documentary by partners Kobi Farage and Maurice Ben Muir ("Photo Farage," Enlighten Yossi "about Yossi Banai). As far as possible, the film (currently being screened at the festival Dokaviv and later this year will also air on HOT8) tells the story of "The Queen of Hebrew Singing" in the first person, through her recordings, archive films, home films, and a few characters from the environment who are interviewed about her. Many describe a magic similar to that described by Manor, while others emphasize The least glittering personal sides in the life of an international star.

In recent years, several documentary projects have been made on musical icons in Israel, and "Queen Shoshana" is one of them. This is a rich portrait that manages to touch on a range of topics, from her relationship with her musical partner Moshe Wilensky. To be a total career woman and to realize her potential in an age that required women to stay home and start a family,And until she became a fashion icon.

The power of the film seems to be in no less than in its content.

It is a feast for the eyes, full of dizzying and glamorous images.

While this is a cliché, the filmmakers managed to bring Damari's voice to face and personality and life with the raw materials available to them, and to revive it as much as possible.

In the end, he felt like listening to her songs.

Shoshana Damari (Photo: Government Press Office)

Above all, one of the most captivating things about the film is the presence of the character of Damari's daughter, Nava, through recordings and reading of letters she wrote to her parents, as a child and as a young woman. In heartbreaking words she describes the longing for her mother appearing in the world, away from her, and her attempts to reunite her parents. Nava, who did not fulfill her dream of becoming a singer herself, also passed away about a decade ago. In the suffocating ending scene of the film, she performs at her mother's funeral ceremony "There Were Nights," in what serves as a farewell to not only a person and not just an icon, but an entire generation.

After the compliments, there is something more to be said. While watching the film I was surprised to notice that there is a pair of words that are not mentioned at all - perhaps mentioned when I blinked, but no more than that - "Yaffa Yarkoni", who for years was in a similar position to Damari, identified with her war songs and sometimes described as her competitor.

Even if it was a completely imagined rivalry, and even if the creators undoubtedly had plenty of material from the archive even without the need for Yarkoni's character, its omission from the film illustrates the biggest weakness of "Queen Shoshana": the desire to unfold the personal story misses social contexts. The wider cultural and nationalities in Damari's career - the enormous cultural role of the light stage during the Mandate (Damari broke out in the Li-La-Lo Theater);

The meaning of Yemeni poetry in early Hebrew song and its social context;

The songs of the wars in her repertoire and her national identity;

And the other expressions that shaped the culture in the Land of Israel and in the State of Israel in the 1940s and 1950s, from which she built herself as queen.

Where is beautiful?

Shoshana Damari and Yaffa Yarkoni (Photo: Government Press Office, Hernik Nati)

The preoccupation with most of these aspects, which are essential to understanding Shoshana Damari's place in Israeli culture, is superficial and endocrine, if any.

Accordingly, the film refrained from giving its own answers or interpretations to the question of what made Damari a beacon.

In this, it must be admitted, it is no different from most of the works published in Israel in this genre in recent years.

Still, if we put these things aside, in the final test, perhaps most importantly, "Queen Rose" succeeded hugely.

In conclusion, the thing I most wanted to do was listen to Damari's songs from all the years.

Who knows, maybe thanks to him, some of them will return to consciousness, almost a century after the singer was born in Yemen who will change Israeli entertainment forever.

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