Time of Favour (2000)

Perhaps the dominant theme in Joseph Cedar’s Time of Favor is the need for doubt, i.e., the folly, often fatal, of absolute certainty of one’s righteousness. In Israeli politics that lesson has only grown more compelling.

In Michal’s first conversation with Menachem she notes how the Israeli men see everything in black and white, untroubled by nuances. He takes pride in quickly overcoming doubts, which serves him well as a military commander but troubles his attraction to her. Their lyrical shadowplay shows them too doubtful about their feelings to touch so they intertwine by their shadows. In a close later scene the Mossad men discuss their concern over Rabbi Meltzer's lack of doubt.

In both closed male systems, the IDF and Rabbi Meltzer’s militant yeshiva, the men are too absolutely certain of their righteousness to achieve justice. Indeed Meltzer insists that a warrior needs to forget his family, lover, emotions, to succeed. When the soldiers target Menachem in the tunnels at the end, as in his violent interrogation earlier, their unfounded certainty about his guilt threatens a profound injustice.

When Menachem declares that Rabbi Meltzer has stolen his soul he realizes that Meltzer’s domination threatens Menachem's and Michal’s happiness, not to mention the general peace.  Menachem resolves to leave the army and his command of the rabbi’s military unit. He wants to live a more sensible, human life. In contrast, the rejected suitor, the brilliant Torah scholar Pini, launches a suicide bombing mission to impress the rabbi and Michal,
     As Michal notes, the rabbi’s blind vision cost her mother’s life. If a terrorist were to kill Michal, he would dismiss it as the pain on which Israel is built. Where Pini loves Michal for the Rabbi Meltzer he sees in her, Menachem’s love for her exposes his mentor’s dangerous folly. Michal has her father's strong will and strong sense of self but is mercifully free of his arrogance. We last see the rabbi walk off alone, having lost his daughter, his best student, his stature, and his delusions about his mission and its worth. We can't be sure the experience has shaken his confidence.

Here’s the film’s crowning paradox. The plot shows the development of a suicide bomber in a West Bank settlement, targeting the Temple Mount, but it has nothing to do with the Palestinians. Cedar’s point is that Jewish religious fanaticism and messianic fervour are as dangerous and irrational as the Palestinians’. Hence Menachem’s rousing speech to his troops: in war you don’t fight the enemy, you fight yourself. As it happens, that’s the original meaning of the Islamic word jihad. Menachem’s term to fire up his troops’ dedication to Jehovah also parallels the Arabs’ bloody service to Allah. To the secular Mookie, it’s like a stick of dynamite up the soldier’s ass. That’s religious fervour for you. It fires you up — fatally and alone.
     Cedar frequently parallels scenes to pointed effect. In one, he cuts from Michal’s solitary sabbath devotion to the barracks men rowdily and brutishly celebrating. Her modest reverence contrasts to their loutish service. Among the men Menachem sits quietly contemplative, as if already decided he must choose her life over theirs.