Rabin The Last Day

On the evening of Saturday, November 4, 1995, prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is shot down with three bullets at the end of a huge political rally in the centre of Tel Aviv. His killer apprehended at the scene turns out to be a 25-year-old student and observant Jew. Investigation into this brutal murder reveals a dark and frightening world that made this tragic deed possible. A subculture of hate fuelled by hysterical rhetoric, paranoia and political intrigue. The extremist rabbis who condemned Rabin by invoking an obscure Talmudic ruling. The prominent right wing politicians who joined in a campaign of incitement against Rabin. The militant Israeli settlers for whom peace meant betrayal. And the security agents who saw what was coming and failed to prevent it. 

This tribute to Nobel Peace Prize winner Yitzhak Rabin on the 20th anniversary of his death sheds light on an ever-growing crisis of the impunity of hate-crimes in Israeli society today. Amos Gitai combines staged re-enactments with news footage of the shooting and its aftermath to create a thought-provoking political thriller.

PRESS

Amos Gitai’s new film, “Rabin, the Last Day”, tries both to delve into those incendiary “circumstances and causes” and to measure, at least implicitly, the lingering effects of Rabin’s death. (…) How did it happen? Two decades later, the question is still raw, and Mr. Gitai, for many years one of the most praised and prominent Israeli filmmakers, poses it with undiminished anguish. While the earnest bureaucrats of the commission question police officers and limousine drivers, a world of religious and ideological zeal is explored that exists at once in plain sight and beyond the reach of their inquiries. (…)

Mr. Gitai conducts an inquiry of the consequences of political extremism, a case study of how inflammatory language can sow the seeds of violence. “Rabin” shows a democratically elected leader not merely criticized and disrespected but demonized, depicted as a dictator and a monster, a traitor, an alien and an enemy of his people. The kind of rhetoric aimed at Rabin, including from the floor of the Israeli Parliament and from members of the opposition party, will hardly sound unfamiliar to American ears. We have been lucky so far. But it would be a mistake to view this troubled, troubling movie simply as an inquest. It’s also a warning.

A. O. Scott, New York Times, January 28, 2016

FESTIVALS

• Biennale di Venezia/Mostra d’arte cinematografica 2015 – In competition – Mouse D’Oro Award, Human Rights Nights Award

• Toronto International Film Festival 2015 – “Masters” Section