Screening Program - I'VE SEEN FILMS - International Film Festival

I’VE SEEN FILMS 2010
International Film Festival
One Eye Wide Open
Rak Be’Ayin A’Hat
FIlm notes
The story of the cult artist Zvi Lachman, an
Israeli sculptor and painter with a huge talent
and sensitiveness, during the 10 year period
of 1998 to 2008.
In his works, in his exhibitions and in his
explorative thinking about art, Lachman
always challenges the various orthodoxies
currently reigning in contemporary Israeli art.
The stylistic choice of this documentary, by
Aner Preminger and Ami Drodz, is to acquaint
us with the various work steps of this
extremely skilled material shaping artist. Indeed, it is the sculpture material that we see during
all of its shaping steps and it is Lachman’s hand that creates lines on paper, eventually
giving them a definite shape. But what really makes this documentary outstanding is the
profound gravity of feeling nurtured in his works.
The role of Lachman is to explain to us, with the help of a harrowing music score, the deeply
religious feeling harbored in his work. The term ‘religious’ here is used broadly speaking: namely
the awareness regarding the deep mystery of creation which Art, in a sense, tries to capture.
Lachman’s faces are expressing an innermost uneasiness that reflects the artist’s energetic mind.
For sixty minutes, we travel with this artist, and discover his multi-faceted production.
A bounteous artist, who shows his narrating skills, firmly capturing his art’s content.
We also discover his desire to compete with the artists that made the History of Arts by going - in
his own way - over some iconographic themes, such as the ‘Sacrifice of Isaac’.
This is a thorough overview of the artist Lachman, and on the human universe that surrounds him.
Along with his fellow artists, who gladly contribute in shaping Lachman’s ideas, we also find his
father, who sits for him. It is his father who asks him why he focuses his eyes in such a peculiar way
while he is painting.
His son’s reply beautifully encompasses his feelings about art, and - probably - also about his life...
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