Zvi Shissel's wonderful film is the most beautiful tribute they made to Arik Einstein

The film "Zvi Omer - Shissel and Einstein" (HOT8), created by Zvi Shissel and completed after his death by his family, is an unusually exciting and funny film.

You can see through it really the fun that spawned moments, songs and scenes that are dear to many of us

Nadav Menuhin

30/05/2022

Monday, 30 May 2022, 00:13 Updated: 00:25

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Uri Zohar at the Knesset Sefer HaTorah event in memory of Arik Einstein (Photo: Yoav Itiel)

There are few iconic songs in Israeli music, such as Arik Einstein and Miki Gavrielov's 1974 "Slow Down".

It's a kind of stream of thoughts that runs in all directions during a long journey, between the losses of Hapoel Tel Aviv and the songs of the tracker.

From time to time another figure appeared in it besides the speaker - "a deer says that such rains are harmful to agriculture", and a few other things.

Zvi Mahashir is Zvi Shissel, director, actor and producer, one of the members of "Lul", and in the mythology of Israeli culture he is best known as one of the satellites in the system that orbited Arik Einstein from the late 1960s onwards.

Shissel took part in several terms and in all kinds of roles in the founding works of the beloved Israeli singer - on technical sides as organizer, producer, driver and show director during his revolutionary albums from the 70s, but also as an active participant as actor and director, for example in films like "Cables" or tapes ".

Apart from Einstein, he also signed on to produce the Nuweiba Festival, and directed several films that have taken place in the history of Israeli entertainment, as well as many commercials - but above all he seems to be identified mainly by the long-standing partnership with Einstein.

Now comes out what later became the latest film: "Zvi Omer - Shissel and Einstein", which airs this week on Hot 8, a kind of biography of the friendships between the two, an epilogue to the scene and the city that were and are gone, through a variety of rare home videos and a collage of iconic materials from all years.

Shissel died while working on the film, and those who completed the work were his widow, editor Noa Shissel, and his son David who produced.

In this sense, it is also a cinematic monument to Shissel himself.

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Shissel and Einstein (Photo: Courtesy of HOT8)

While the shelf of materials on Arik Einstein is filling up, "Zvi Omer" is indeed a chronicle - but it is a much more personal film than a biographical film.

Although the story is partial, and it is not really a journey of soul-searching - except for one brief moment in which Shissel welcomes the deletion of the disturbing painting from the beach "Peeks" - but a reflection and collection of memories, some became familiar in every home and some completely private, .

And the truth is, it's hard not to get excited.

So what else can the film say about what has been said about it so much?

Quite a few.

First of all, it's an unusually funny movie - not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of a documentary.

For a variety of reasons, Einstein is remembered, despite his status, precisely as a shy and hidden figure to the tools.

Here he is exposed more liberated than ever, joking non-stop.

In other passages, it is Shisel himself bursting out laughing.

There is something exciting and joyful about it, and throughout most of the film the smile hardly comes off the face.

More than that - there is something liberating about it: without the weight of history, the critical importance and the familiar charges, very funny people are just revealed.

You can really see the fun that spawned moments, songs and scenes that are dear to many of us.

Lots of laughter behind the scenes.

Shalom and Eric (Photo: Courtesy of HOT8)

It is also a film that deals with parting and the changing times, and especially in Tel Aviv that was and is not.

Shisel and Einstein, Tel Aviv symbols, are repeatedly seen in the household materials, wandering around what is left of the city of their childhood and youth - and abandoned or destroyed or polluted.

From the Yarkon through the Orion Cinema to Avigdor's Shack - places that have themselves entered the history of Israeli culture.

This world has been replaced by towers, bustling streets and commercial networks - this is the way of the world, but also a metaphor for aging and the exchange of cultural trends and forces.

As mentioned, this view is not critical of the less pleasant sides of that vanished world - but if you suspend that demand, you can indulge in this indulgence, which has something charming and touching about it.

Shissel goes over all the main points in his collaboration with Einstein, as well as some fascinating anecdotes behind the scenes of the period, until the death of the icon.

It will not innovate much in terms of information for those familiar with the overall picture, but the unique perspective and inner humor revealed here is irreplaceable.

It can be summed up in a few words: this seems to be the most beautiful tribute to Arik Einstein ever made.

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• Deer Shissel

• Arik Einstein