“Footnote,” an Israeli film nominated for this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar, refers to the marginalized scholar Eliezer Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar Aba, “Nisuim Fiktiveem”). Secluded in his library, he muffles his ears with noise-canceling headphones and turns his myopic vision to the decaying manuscripts that overflow from his desk. His academic pursuits are actually no more than a compulsion, the weak pulse of a line of research that long ago lost any sort of relevance. It is a testament to writer-director Joseph Cedar's award-winning script that the overall quality of the movie doesn't succumb to the apparent dryness of its subject matter.
At the heart of this unusual story is the relationship between Eliezer and his son, Uriel (Lior Ashkenazi), both of whom are Talmudic scholars. Eliezer, who has few accolades to speak of despite his lifetime of work, is taciturn and pretentious; Uriel is socially comfortable and eloquent. As Eliezer fades into obscurity, a panel offers Uriel the prestigious Israel Prize. In a striking plot twist, Uriel immediately turns down this award, convincing the judges that Eliezer deserves the academic recognition instead. He lets his father bask in long-awaited fame, keeping the secret to himself even when Eliezer disdains his own son's work and publicly insults him. This painful dynamic sets in motion equally tense dramas involving Eliezer's wife and Uriel's listless teenage son. Out of esoteric narrative resources, a suspenseful drama — perhaps even a tragedy — seems set to unfold.
Ultimately, the movie's development as a compelling tragedy is stunted. Especially for the first half hour or so, the Shkolniks are difficult characters to empathize with, and the writer only aggravates this flaw with his attempts at black comedy. The father and son are so eccentric that to overtly satirize them seems redundant. Rounded out by the performances of solid actors, Eliezer and Uriel do transcend this limitation on several occasions, but the snarky humor frequently reduces them to bland caricatures.
One especially irritating symptom of the movie's comedic aspirations is the cartoony music, which runs through several of the most poignant and decidedly unfunny scenes. It develops an independent character, like a narration stolen from another movie. The visuals follow a similar trend. Microscopic close-ups highlight the pores in paper and the wire lines in a computer monitor, while transitions mimic the movement of slides switched by a projector; every new scene glides onto the screen with a mechanical snap. While these tricks are entertaining in their own right, they don't contribute to the movie as a whole. In fact, they steal the spotlight from a fundamentally engaging story.
Near the end, the director briefly abandons cinematic bells and whistles. With a tight focus on character, a simple piano track, and modest editing methods, a more compelling drama briefly surfaces. This was the most captivating scene in the movie because what “Footnote” gains in style and quirks, it sacrifices in emotional depth. In the same way that Eliezer accrues mountains of notes in pursuit of “existential bliss,” only to cause himself more misery, an excess of fussy cinematic experimentation nearly obscures the fascinating tragedy at Footnote's core.
thescene@theeagleonline.com
