Ahed’s Knee follows a filmmaker named Y (played by Avshalom Pollak), who is on his way out to Araba for the purpose of screening his film.
Upon arrival, Yahalom (Nur Fibak), a rather attractive woman who works for the ministry, shows him around his accommodation.
Enamored with Yahalom, Lapid has the director namedrop classic cinema in order to impress her.
Is Y a womanizer, like many other Israeli males? Is he fully aware of his own digressions? Is he ready to admit his own fallibility?
In one scene, he is seen checking Tinder, where he flirts with a married woman. He also catches the eyes of a young hitchhiker, but she passes on the ride. Later on, he takes a queasy interest in Yahalom’s much younger sister.
As noted, Ahed’s Knee is also a meta-film about the process of filmmaking.
In the beginning Y is involved in a project about Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian protester who, at 16, was imprisoned for slapping an Israeli police officer who attempted to raid her house.
Lapid opens his story with a casting session and close-ups of various knees of different shapes and sizes. He views this particular body part as representing an ambiguous duality, a symbol of both strength (when the knee stands firm on the ground) and fragility (when it shakes and trembles, albeit for different reasons).
We learn that Y’s own radicalization is the result of an elaborate hazing ritual during his military service, a powerful scene shown in flashback (similar scene was used in Lapid’s previous film, Synonyms).
The figure of Y’s mother, who is suffering from lung cancer, becomes more prominent as the plot unfolds. Ahed’s Knee pays tribute to Lapid’s own mother, who died around the time he was editing Synonyms. Before screening his movie, he quotes her saying “In the end, geography wins, but not necessarily in a good way.”
Walking with Yahalom while the film screens, Y’s frustrations build to a searing point as he slams the government’s new “loyalty” laws.
The film’s predominant tone is grim, perhaps reflecting the director’s own despair. That mood is as arid and spare as the surrounding Araba landscape. Visually, Lapid contrasts the flat geography with Yahalom’s more colorful floral dresses.
The camera flicks back and forth, showing on the one side the barren wastes of dissent, and on the other the comforts of compliance.
End Note
A highlight of the 2021 Cannes Film Fest Competition, Ahed’s Knee won one of the Jury’s Special Prizes.