A look at the "The Deer" series/here 11
"The Deer", the corporation's new historical comedy, opens with a family photo, which is repeatedly destroyed because one of the family members, the girl Ita, sneezes, which turns the frozen image, familiar to all of us from family albums and textbooks - into an amusing and silly portrait.
These serious people from this serious era, actually tells us the creator of the series Keren Margalit ("Wake up the Bear"), were as silly and funny as we are - and history is not as severe as it might seem.
And accordingly, this strange comedy may be dealing with weighty issues, shifting tones all the time: from the tragic to the parody, from historical accuracy to late postmodern quotations.
One moment she is the "beauty queen of Jerusalem", the next she is something between "Carthage" and "The Jews are coming".
The very desire to touch a period distant from the history of Zionism, to laugh at it and touch it is brave.
In this sense too, it is reminiscent of Rashef Levy's series, and one can hope that this is a trend.
The series takes place in 1885 in Jerusalem, where Eliezer Ben Yehuda works against all odds to publish a weekly about the purity of the Hebrew language called "The Deer" - after which the series is named.
The fictional and affluent Tzipis family arrives in Jerusalem from Russia with their three teenage daughters, and one of them, Fromma (Suzanna Papian, "Sovietska", "Monkey Garden"), has a special talent for languages and a revolutionary tendency.
In order for her beloved to forget the revolutionary left behind, her parents send him to work for Ben Yehuda himself (Or Ben Melek, "The Dubbed", "The Boys").
This, while the Hebrew prophet, his first wife Deborah and his son Itamar are fighting the Jerusalem zealots for their revolutionary mission.
The two develop a complex but ambivalent relationship.
Ben Yehuda admires Fromma's original Hebrew, and it is reflected both in his uncompromising ambitions and in the act of journalism itself as a tool to change reality.
In particular, she gets swept up in one shocking plot: the case of an attempted lynching of a girl by a mob, who was carried away by the belief that "hacking" caused the death of mothers and children during childbirth.
Her and Ben Yehuda's insistence on publishing this affair is followed by attempts at pressure, threats and intrigue.
At the same time, the subplot Sweet Yotam concerns a love triangle between the two sisters of Fromma and a young pioneer employed at the pavilion.
Some of the events are based on real news that were published in the newspaper.
Or Ben Melech and Susanna Papian, "The Deer"/Kaan 11
Thus, lots and lots of genres appear here at the same time: a dark journalist-detective thriller, a coming-of-age story and a look at first love and immigration - all these in a mini-series of only six episodes.
This, at the same time as questions about revolutionary fanaticism and big ideas versus pragmatism, the choice between absolute social fulfillment and the private and family world, and no less important: the insufficient story is told about women in national history, about their role and their experience in major events.
And with all this, the real heroine of "The Deer" is the language.
This is a series about the birth of Hebrew, which enjoys having fun enthusiastically with the invention of new words and everyday Hebrew.
Besides, Hebrew is not the main language of the series at all - most of it is conducted in Russian with a little Yiddish, German and even Turkish (it ignores the Arabs in Jerusalem, as of the first three episodes, in favor of an intra-Jewish story).
If so, this is a tower of Babel of different groups, destined to collapse before one dominant language that will dominate the Jewish space against all odds.
However, the series presents another possibility: a multilingual and multicultural world, where people speak languages and are able to get to know each other's culture.
The absolute victory of Hebrew is also the loss of all these languages, cultures that have faded from the environment.
Another central theme is the media: while the camera delights in the letters of print - of course as part of the whole linguistic delight - it also discusses journalistic ethics and the roles of the press.
In this context, it is not superfluous to mention that the investigation of the series is signed by the creator's father, the journalist Dan Margalit.
Ben Yehuda is presented here as a person for whom the newspaper is a means for the main goal - the spread of Hebrew.
For this he is also ready to publish a story about a boy born in Turkey with half the body of a dog and half the body of a man ("Ben Yehuda will write everything to sell a newspaper").
On the other hand, it has its own standards.
He believes that journalism should describe reality and not interfere with reality, and despite everything, under the influence of the idealistic Prome no less than himself, he decides to immerse himself in the case despite the pressures exerted on him, and to publish the story anyway.
The dilemma between the commercial-ideological desire for circulation and the prices of the stubborn press always accompany the popular media, as does the tension between complete fake news and brave investigation, which are forced to be published in one issue side by side.
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"The Deer" relies on a great cast, and especially on Papian and Ben Melech - two of the best screen actors in Israel today.
Their characters speak with heavy but not ridiculous accents, and they manage to be serious and funny in moderation.
Ben Melek brings life to the eccentric character of Ben Yehuda, for his seriousness and loneliness.
The chemistry between him and Ben Papian is excellent, and they develop an interesting relationship.
In addition, as befits a historical drama, it also looks, is designed and photographed wonderfully, and easily sweeps the viewer into the Jerusalem of 140 years ago.
Still, the first half of the series is also deceptive.
In the meantime, it is lovable and interesting, but also minor, and even in the middle it is not yet clear where it is heading, how its various wings will intersect with each other, or what is the dominant tone with which it goes.
She's fun, smart, moderately funny and likeable, but is there more to her than she claims to be?
We'll probably have to wait until the end to find out.
Meanwhile, of the entire historical party, the best scene in it is taken from another era.
At the end of the second episode, Ita (Neta Roth), the younger sister, is exposed to the romantic tension between her sister Sonia and the striker Gabriel Nissan, with whom she is also in love.
Opposite the introverted Sonya, Ita is a burning fire, which expresses itself in dance.
And in view of the love story in front of her, she breaks into a modern dance to Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams", and jumps at once a century ahead in a playful pastiche.
If you're going to knead history with a wink, so be it.
More on the same topic:
Eliezer Ben Yehuda
Susanna Papian
Or Ben Melech