If any line could summarize the politics of Israeli-produced film Foxtrot, it is perhaps the one elaborating on the film’s own title. “Did you know the foxtrot is a dance?” asks Michael to his mourning wife Dafna. “No matter where you go, you always end up at the same starting point.”
Released in December, Foxtrot tackles the exhausting grief and tedium of the Israel-Palestine conflict, an endless struggle in which any progress or headway seems to lead in circles. The film diverges into two main storylines: It follows the grieving parents of a recently killed young Israeli soldier on compulsory service and the shameful exploits of the soldier himself. In the defining and most controversial scene of the film, the young soldier’s squad opens fire on a group of innocent Palestinian civilians after mistaking a soda can for a grenade. The senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer orders for the deaths to be covered up and forgotten about, writing the incident off as a grim reality of war.
The film’s unflinching criticism of Israel and the IDF was applauded by Israel’s artistic community, earning it eight prizes at the nation’s academy awards and clinching Israel’s submission for best foreign-language film at the Oscars. While such acclaim seems indicative of unreserved support, Israel’s Minister of Culture Miri Regev denounced the film as slanderous and the result of “self-flagellation and cooperation with the anti-Israel narrative.” She has also announced plans to push for more government control in the €18 million set aside for national artists through the Israel Film Fund, hoping to cut off support for projects too critical of Israel’s policies. Whilst many critics of Regev question the justifiability of increased governmental censorship in the arts, the much more interesting question concerns sustainability: Could Israel realistically prevent the creation of dissident art in the long term by refusing to fund it? Foxtrot’s director Samuel Maoz prefers an alternative solution.
Instead of suppressing critical art, Israel should wholeheartedly embrace it. When asked about Regev’s condemnation of Foxtrot, Maoz replied: “She [Regev] said I’m bad publicity. But there’s nothing better for the Israeli government than to show it’s willing to criticize itself.” Maoz’ point can be applied more broadly: Any government setting itself against its own cultural community is bound to get trapped in an unceasing and unwinnable war; consider Soviet Russia’s unsuccessful yet brutal attempts to suppress its critics, or for that matter any authoritarian regime of the past two centuries. The Israeli government would be dancing its own foxtrot.
Regev’s ideas of censorship and cultural conservatism are most easily attributed to a sense of national pride, but Maoz’ suggestion is an example of how criticism can be rooted in the same sentiment. Responding to Regev’s questioning of his loyalty to Israel, Maoz replied: “If I criticize the place [where] I live, I do it because I worry. I do it because I want to protect it. And I do it from love.” If in its criticism Foxtrot is trying to act in Israel’s long-term interest, giving its government a chance to display a receptiveness to criticism, then surely the production of the film has an undeniably loyal element. Furthermore, if it is trying to create a precedent by which the artistic community can interact with the government through argumentative critical production, then surely Maoz’ suggestion is more loyal to the country’s democratic ideals than Regev’s short-term plan to cut funding to dissident films on a case-by-case basis. Of the two solutions, the second only seems to be a stopgap.
In its unflattering flatly lighted portrayal of an unwinnable war, Foxtrot should be an exhortation for the Israeli government not to enter one with its own cultural community. Rather than treat the film and its inevitable successors as anomalous occurrences, the government should create a sustainable relationship with critical art, or as Maoz aptly puts it, “play chess” with controversy rather than boycott it entirely.