The trailer for the film "The Fivelmen" (courtesy of United King Films)
Star rating for movies - 4 stars (photo: photo processing, .)
Steven Spielberg is a household name in almost every household - at least in any household that has someone over the age of 25 with an affinity for cinema.
Almost everyone knows at least two or three of his movies, but what do we know about him?
Unlike many other directors, Spielberg never directed a film based on his life story.
Just now, just before he turns 76 and after more than fifty years of work, his first autobiographical film is coming - "The Devilmen" is his name.
It opens in Israel at the end of the week, riding on a wave of pouring reviews and optimistic predictions for the awards season.
The prophecy was given to fools, but it is currently the favorite for the Oscar, an award the filmmaker knows well.
The hero of the film is clearly the director's character, but his name is not Steven Spielberg but Sam Feibelman.
It is therefore debatable whether it is an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical film, but either way, more than an autobiography - it can be seen as something else.
In recent years, every comic book character gets an Origin Story: a movie that explains how she became a superhero or villain, who her nemesis is and why.
Following on from this, "The Devilmen" is Spielberg's Origin Story: a film that explains how he became a director, why his family is so busy in his work, and how he consolidated his Jewish identity in America.
A baby that was captured.
From "The Fivelmen" (photo: courtesy of United King Films)
The film operates on three levels, all of which intersect with each other.
The first level is family: these are the stories of Spielberg/Feibelman but also of his parents, played by Michelle Williams and Paul Dano.
The cracks in their relationship are revealed here little by little, and eventually lead to a separation, which deeply affected their son.
When you watch "The Devilmen", you can better understand why divorce was at the center of two of the director's first big films, "Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T."
The parents are divided about their son's future.
The father, an engineer who works in the growing computer industry, wants him to follow in his footsteps.
The mother, who herself sacrificed her piano career to raise Spielberg/Feibelman and his sisters, encourages him to cultivate his artistic ambitions.
There is no special grudge against the father in the film, but it is clear that the main sympathy is for the mother, who is presented as the most complete, complex, smart, supportive and understanding character in the family.
"The Fablemen" is Spielberg's love letter to his mother,
On the other level, the film is also a love letter to the big screen, and the one who instills this love in Spielberg/Feibelman is his mother.
First of all, she turns him into a movie mouse.
The film begins with a beautiful scene in which Spielberg/Feibelman is still a small and frightened child, standing outside the movie theater and afraid to step inside.
The mother, but Mi, convinces him to enter, and to come with her and his father to the screening of the epic "The Greatest Show in the World" somewhere in 1952.
She assures him that it will be an unforgettable experience - and she is right, of course.
The baby was born.
Spielberg/Feibelman falls in love with cinema, and his mother later encourages him to turn from a passive viewer into an active creator, and buys him his first camera.
We will not find out what her explanation for this is, but it is said that it is one of the most beautiful explanations we have ever seen for the power of this art, and the importance it can have in a person's life.
Anyway, her son shows a rare talent.
Every Jewish family is unhappy in its own way.
From "The Fivelmen" (photo: courtesy of United King Films)
It goes without saying that Spielberg/Feibelman has a rare sense of spectacle.
Indeed, as a child we see him photographing disasters using his toy trains, which prepare him for the action scenes of "Indiana Jones".
But beyond these fantasies of destruction, he also benefits from using the camera to better understand reality.
Thus, for example, thanks to the gift he received from his mother, he discovers her great secret.
And we won't reveal it to you, of course.
What can be said?
It is no secret to say that Spielberg is Jewish, and if "The Devilmen" is his most personal film, then naturally it is also his most Jewish film.
Among other things, it stars two prominent Jewish comedians: veteran Judd Hirsch as the director's great-uncle, who appears in only a few scenes, but leaves a deep mark on them with an unforgettable and cross-continental overview of the long-standing relationship between the Jewish people and the entertainment industry;
And the much younger Seth Rogen, as a character whose nature we cannot reveal.
Let's say that already at the beginning of the film, the tiny Spielberg/Feibelman longs for Christmas lights, but his parents make it clear to him that they light Hanukkah candles - and that's what they actually do.
The film begins in New Jersey, which has a large Jewish population, but following the father's work, the family moves to Arizona and eventually to Santa Clara, California.
The trailer for the film "The Fivelmen" (courtesy of United King Films)
At this point, the hero of the film is already a teenager, and on his first day in high school he discovers that there are no more Jews around.
The hero here is indeed his own son, and his name is "Fableman" and not "Spielberg", but it doesn't matter - because this last name also betrays his identity.
The kings of the corridor give him the nickname "bagel-man", make it clear to him that they don't like Jews and demand that he apologize for killing Jesus, and thus the film provides us with a painful illustration that anti-Semitism in America existed long before Kanye West and Kyrie Irving.
Its roots are deep, its expressions are violent.
And here, the Jewish story which is also the family story intersects with the cinematic story.
Spielberg/Feibelman, who initially asked for Christmas lights instead of Hanukkah candles, again has to choose, and this time chooses not to deny his identity.
He refuses to apologize, stands his ground and also wins the heart of the most devout Christian in high school, who is responsible for the funniest scenes in the film - at least at the screening I was in, the audience roared at the moments with her participation, and fortunately there are many of them (by the way, in reality Spielberg is married to actress Kate Capshaw, who converted and according to her he rediscovered Judaism through her).
Through his status as an outsider, Spielberg/Feibelman transforms from the high school tomboy to the one everyone looks up to, and like many Jews before and after him, he does so thanks to his camera.
Thanks to his abilities, he is asked to stand with her and observe his classmates and film them for a film that will summarize the high school period, because who else can do this but him?
Now, thanks to the power of the gaze and thanks to his rare ability to perceive reality and his desire to shape it as he wishes, he can elevate or humiliate whoever he wants.
Of course, not only the fictional Spielberg is a great director, but also the real Spielberg, who more than ever proves to be a master here.
It is obvious that he was delighted to make this film, and the result is pure pleasure.
His collaboration with his regular partners is also as successful as ever: the photographer Janosz Kaminski, the composer John Williams and especially the screenwriter Tony Kushner.
The script they wrote together is a work of thought, where a scene in the third act always complements a scene from the first or second act.
between the prince of Egypt and Jesus.
From "The Fivelmen" (photo: courtesy of United King Films)
The game displays are also great.
We've already mentioned Williams, Dano, Hirsch and Rogen, but the ones who steal the show are Gabrielle LeBelle as the young Spielberg, and one brief guest appearance, in which a great director who is still alive, and we won't reveal his name here, appears to play the late legendary director C. Van Ford, and provides a scene for Pantheon in which he explains how cinema is directed.
This is how it is: as befits the script being a work of thought, it begins with a scene where they explain how to watch a movie and ends with a scene where they explain how to make a movie.
The movie is based on Spielberg's life, so it wouldn't be a spoiler to say that it starts in New Jersey and ends in Hollywood, when the young director gets his first job in the industry.
Nor will anyone be surprised to hear that the film ends with its hero smiling - if "Schindler's List" had a happy ending, then wouldn't it be here?
Pain and glory.
From "The Fivelmen" (photo: courtesy of United King Films)
More importantly, the audience's smile at the end of the film is even bigger than the hero's.
Also because "The Fablemen" is full of so much love and soul, also because it offers us an immersive and dizzying cinematic experience, but mainly because in the end, it offers us an optimistic - and simple - story.
You can see "The Fibelmen" as an autobiography of Spielberg, you can see it as a film about the nature of the art of cinema and you can see it as the story of American Jewry, but above all it is a story about a boy who dreamed of becoming a film director, and made the dream come true;
A film about a boy who fell in love with the cinema when he saw "The Greatest Show in the World" and from then until today, time after time presents us with the best show in town.
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Steven Spielberg
Seth Rogen
Michelle Williams
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