She showed incredible bravery during an attack.

Instead of building a monument to her, they called her a "slut"

Kochva Levy showed resourcefulness, composure and nobility during an attack, but instead of gaining fame, her name was defamed.

"Savoy", Zohar Wagner's film which is showing in cinemas before the screenings in Khan 11, stands as a monument to her memory and is built in her image - brave, sharp and radical

Avner Shavit

11/08/2022

Thursday, August 11, 2022, 4:56 p.m. Updated: 5:07 p.m.

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The trailer of the movie "Savoy" (here 11)

Star rating for movies - 4 stars (photo: photo processing, .)

In all the photos documenting negotiations between Israel and the Arab world, the almost complete absence of women from the discussion table is always noticeable.

Similarly, there are almost no films in Israeli cinema about the security situation directed by women.

Into this space now enters "Savoy", Zohar Wagner's film in question.

After premiering at the Jerusalem Film Festival, from which it won two awards, and before being shown at Han 11, the film was released this week in a limited distribution in theaters.

On Wednesday he also managed to be honored with seven nominations for the Ophir Awards.

As the name implies, the film deals with the attack on the Savoy Hotel, during which eight Palestinian terrorists took over the place and took dozens of hostages.

It focuses on the character of Kochaba Levy, one of the hostage girls, who, thanks to her Kurdish-Yemenian origin, spoke Arabic, and thanks to this, found herself a mediator between the terrorists and the army forces who were negotiating with them.

She did so calmly and looked after him even when she helped rescue an injured tourist so he could receive medical treatment.

All along the way, the heroine did not try to escape, but took care of the other abductees.

Wagner, who began her career as a journalist and musician, broke into the world of cinema about a decade and a half ago with her documentary film "Zorki", and has since directed several other acclaimed documentaries.

"Savoy" also has documentary elements, and it combines archival photographs, recordings from the event and the like, but the director also incorporates dramatic reconstructions of the events, with the participation of a host of stars and female stars - Dana Ivegi as her co-star Levi, Imrie Beaton as the married man with whom she had an affair, who was He was also in the hotel at the time of the attack, except for a minute as one of the terrorists and so on.

Dooku or no dooku?

From "Savoy" (Photo: Mosh Meshali)

In this sense, "Savoy" is an action film for everything, with quite a few scenes of explosions and shootings - Kochva Levy, a woman who got into a situation inside a trapped building and then maneuvered her way through it with resourcefulness, is a sort of Israeli version of John McClane in "Dead to Live" Or of any other action hero in one of the imitations of this hit.

Even in the history of Hollywood, it is rare for studios to entrust such films to a woman.

One of the only ones to do this is Kathryn Bigelow, and her unique touch of the hand brought us some of the best action and war movies of our generation, including "Breaking Point", "Charge of Pain" and "Stand by Dawn".

In Israeli cinema it is even rarer.

Wagner breaks new ground here and marks herself as Israel's answer to Bigelow.

"Savoy" can be defined as a genre film, but it is neither generic nor conventional, and the result is much less heroic and bombastic than usual in its genre, and much more restrained and complex.

The director does not give up on building the tension and describing the drama, but puts emphasis on the human design of the characters, including the terrorists, and especially on framing this story within a political and social context.

"Savoy" also breaks new ground in another sense: we have already seen many films about the conflict, but they did not introduce into it either the ethnic deprivation or the gender discrimination, and this film combines both here.

Wagner describes how her star Levi suffered double oppression: both as a woman, and as an Oriental woman.

It started when, despite her passion for the written word, which is reflected in excerpts from her diary that are quoted throughout the film, the kibbutz where Chaya lived blocked her path to a degree in humane studies and pushed her to manual labor and the fringes of society.

This continued even when circumstances put her momentarily in the center of the stage.

The recordings from the event reveal how much the special forces personnel who surrounded the hotel underestimated her, probably because of her gender and origin.

"Tell him to talk to me... you probably don't know Arabic well, so you don't miss something," one of them told her patronizingly after she volunteered to help with the mediation efforts.

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Limited distribution before it goes up on "Kan 11".

From "Savoy" (Photo: Mosh Meshali)

But even though she did not serve in the IDF, Levy spoke Arabic better than most of the military personnel outside the hotel. Her character reveals a sad fact: those who manage the conflict and cover it from our side are usually Ashkenazi men who do not know the other side's language and have not bothered to learn it. "Savoy" illustrates the kind of good, natural and productive communication that developed over a period of time between the Israeli-Mizrahi abductee and one of the Palestinian kidnappers, and what would happen if more Mizrahi women were complicit in managing the conflict.

Instead of Levy's heroism bringing her glory, she is the bed of shame All this because she was a married woman, but spent time in the hotel with another man, married himself. The local society was even more puritanical and misogynistic then than today, and could not contain it.

In addition to that, at the same time an outsourcer with a name similar to hers was operating in the area.

Because of all this, she was written about in the Israeli and international media as having been "hacked".

Levy filed a defamation lawsuit and won compensation, but even when they cleared her name, they did so in a humiliating way.

"Savoy" reveals tapes of military personnel who discussed her character after the hostage rescue operation, and insulted her only because she dared to have an extramarital affair.

"She wasn't a whore, just a slut," concludes one of them, in what is the most shocking moment in "Savoy".

The archive footage is ultimately the strongest moments in the film.

One can question the decision to create it as a docu-drama, but if he had been satisfied with the documentary approach, he might have remained nothing more than a long, fascinating but routine magazine article.

The dramatic reconstructions make it possible to better illustrate the character of the characters, and the star Levi had a piece of character.

Their combination also makes "Savoy" more interesting in terms of form, and is conducive to combining form and content.

The editing work of Neely Feller and Shauli Melamed creates a tension between the documentary and feature sections, which reflects the tension that existed in the hotel at the time of the attack.

The mixing between the two types of action at the same time subverts the rules of the documentary and the action film, and this subversion suits the radical messages of the film.

Kochva Levi did things her way, and Zohar Wagner does them that way too.

Combines dramatic reenactments with archival footage.

Kochva Levy from "Savoy" (Photo: Corporation Archives)

Dana Ivegi, who stars in the lead role, does this as a matter of habit as she is determined, committed and as serious as a clenched fist.

The actress is nominated for an Ophir award for her performance here and will compete herself, as she is also nominated for her performance this year in "Cinema Sabia".

In the recordings you hear that the star Levy had a special accent and cut of speech, which "Savoy" is not so successful and probably does not try to reproduce from the beginning.

One can also regret that the film is so short - one hour and 18 minutes.

Again, he does not try and probably does not want to delve into other aspects, including the victims of the incident - eight civilians and three of the military personnel who tried to rescue them.

The exclusion of Kochva Levy began long before the Savoy Hotel attack and continued long after it, until her death three years and two weeks ago.

She never got the recognition she deserved.

Not only is there no monument to her name - she doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

Zohar Wagner's cinematic work stands as a monument to her memory and is built in her image: brave, poetic,

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