Los Angeles Times - 02.08.2019

L ATIMES.COM/CALENDAR FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2019E5

1045 Broxton Ave • Westwood • (310) 208-3250

11272 Santa MonicaBlvd •WestL.A.•(310)473-8530

THE LANDMARKLOUNGE HAPPYHOUR•Daily4:00pm–6:30pm &

9:00pm–10:30pm•Enjoy HappyHour specials on select glassesofbeer andwine!

10850 W.Pico atWestwood•WestL.A.

3HoursFreeParking. Additional2Hours$3withValidation.

ShowtimesandInformation:(310)470-0492

Landmarkstrongly supports

aNOTEXTING AND

NOCELLPHONEpolicy.

landmarktheatres.com/los-angeles

SubscribeFilmClub.LandmarkTheatres.com

LandmarkTheatres.com/GiÂCards

()at Discount =NoPasses =The ScreeningLounge

●Closed Captioning ◗OpenCaptioning ■Descriptive VideoService

VA LID FRIDAY~AUGUSTVONLY ©2019LandmarkTheatres

ClosedforRemodeling

●■(PG)

THEFAREWELL

(10:15) 11:55, 12:45, 2:20, 3:10, 4:45,

5:35, 7:10, 8:00, 9:20, 10:20

6:15pm

●■(PG)

THE LION KING

(11: 15)2:00, 4:40, 7:30, 10:10

▼●(PG-13)

MIKEWALLACE

IS HERE

(10:20) 12:40, 2:45, 5:00,

7:15, 9:25

●■(R)

DAVID CROSBY:

REMEMBER MY

NAME

(11:00)1:10, 3:20, 5:35,

7:50, 10:05

▼●■LUCE(R)

Director JuliusOnah&ActorKelvin

HarrisonJr. In PersonforaQ&A

Following the 7:20pm Show!

(11:35) 12:30, 2:10, 3:05, 4:45, 5:40,

7:20,8:15, 10:15, 10:45

▼●(R)THEMTHAT

FOLLOW

Writers/Directors BrittPoulton, Dan

Madison Savage&ActorWalton

GogginsInPersonforaQ&A

Followingthe7:40pm Show!

(11:00) 1:25, 3:50, 8:40

12:30, 2:55, 5:20, 7:40,10:20

▼●■(R)ONCEUPON

ATIMEIN...

HOLLY WOOD

(11: 10)12:10 ,1:00, 2:35, 3:35, 4:20,

6:00, 7:00, 7:45, 9:30, 10:20, 11:00

FILMMAKER GARRET PRICE&PRODUCERDRAKEDOREMUS INPERSONFORAQ&A

FOLLOWINGTHE7:00PM SHOW!

LOVE,ANTOSHA(R)

(12:20) 2:30, 4:45, 7:00, 9:35

SPOONSAVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE!

THE ROOM(R)-ATMIDNIGHT

TEL AVIV ONFIREI1:50 PM

4:30 PM 7:20 PM 10:10PM

HONEYLAND1:00 PM 3:15 PM

5:30 PM 7:45 PM 10:15PM

AFAITHFUL MAN1:20 PM

3:20 PM 5:20 PM 7:30 PM

10:00PM

TEL AVIV ONFIREI1:50 PM

4:50 PM 7:30 PM 10:10PM

THE GROUND BENEATH MY

FEETI4:30 PM 10:00PM

HONEYLAND1:10 PM 3:20 PM

5:30 PM 7:40 PM 10:00PM

MIKEWALLACEISHEREC

1:00 PM 3:15 PM 5:30 PM 7:50 PM

10:15PM

ONCE UPONATIME...IN

HOLLYWOODE1:00 PM 4:30 PM

8:00 PM

DAVID CROSBY:REMEMBER MY

NAMEE1:10 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM

8:00 PM 10:15PM

THE FAREWELLB1:30 PM

4:10 PM 7:00 PM 10:00PM

YESTERDAYC1:40 PM 7:20 PM

YESTERDAYC4:30 PM

GOODBYE COLUMBUS !1969"I

7:30 PM

ROYAL

11523 SantaMonicaBlvd. West L.A.

PLAYHOUSE673 E. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena

AHR8556 WilshirYAeBFINE ARTSlvd. Beverly Hills

http://www.LAEMMLE.com

AFRAID

OFSUBTITLES

NOT

InfoLine310.478.3836

TM

BARGAIN IN() FOR 8/2/2019ONLY

ASCORETO SETTLE1:00 PM

4:00 PM 7:00 PM

THE GROUND BENEATH MY

FEETI1:30 PM 4:20 PM 7:10 PM

10:00PM

ONCE UPONATIME...IN

HOLLYWOODE1:00 PM 4:30 PM

8:00 PM

THE FAREWELLB1:20 PM

4:40 PM 7:30 PM 10:15PM

MARIANNE&LEONARD:WORDS

OF LOVEE4:10 PM

MAIDENB1:50 PM 4:50 PM

7:40 PM 10:15PM

ECHO INTHECANYONC

1:10 PM 7:50 PM 10:10PM

CONSEQUENCES9:55 PM

ONCE UPONATIME...IN

HOLLYWOODE1:00 PM 4:30 PM

8:00 PM

CASSANDRO, THE EXOTICO!I

1:00 PM 3:00 PM 7:30 PM

THE LION KINGB1:30 PM

4:20 PM 7:20 PM 10:10PM

THE FAREWELLB1:40 PM

4:10 PM 7:10 PM 10:15PM

THE LAST BLACKMAN IN SAN

FRANCISCOE1:20 PM 4:30 PM

7:20 PM 10:10PM

TEACHER5:00 PM 9:50 PM

MONICA

1332 Second Street SantaMonica

GLENDALE207 N. MarylandAve Glendale

FAST &FURIOUS PRESENTS:

HOBBS&SHAWC1:00 PM

4:00 PM 7:00 PM 10:00PM

OTHERHOODE1:50 PM 4:40 PM

7:30 PM 10:00PM

THE GROUND BENEATH MY

FEETI4:20 PM 10:10PM

ONCE UPONATIME...IN

HOLLYWOODE1:00 PM 4:30 PM

8:00 PM

DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY

NAMEE1:10 PM 3:20 PM 5:40 PM

8:00 PM 10:15PM

THE LION KINGB1:30 PM

4:20 PM 7:20 PM 10:15PM

THE FAREWELLB1:20 PM

4:30 PM 7:10 PM 9:50 PM

YESTERDAYC1:30 PM 7:20 PM

FAST &FURIOUS PRESENTS:

HOBBS&SHAWC1:00 PM

4:00 PM 7:00 PM 10:00PM

ONCE UPONATIME...IN

HOLLYWOODE1:00 PM 4:30 PM

8:00 PM

DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY

NAMEE1:10 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM

8:00 PM 10:15PM

THE LION KINGB1:40 PM

4:30 PM 7:20 PM 10:10PM

THE FAREWELLB1:30 PM

4:10 PM 7:30 PM 10:15PM

NoHo 7

5240 Lankershim Blvd. No. Hollywood

CLAREMONT

450 W. 2nd Street Claremont

TEL AVIV ONFIREI1:30 PM

4:10 PM 7:10 PM 10:00PM

MIKEWALLACEISHEREC

1:10 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM

8:00 PM 10:15PM

DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY

NAMEE1:00 PM 3:15 PM

5:30 PM 7:50 PM 10:15PM

THE FAREWELLB1:50 PM

4:30 PM 7:30 PM 10:10PM

PAVAROTTIC1:30 PM

7:00 PM

ROCKETMANE4:10 PM

10:00PM

15 MINUTES OFWAR4:30 PM

ISTHATYOU?9:50 PM

JIRGA5:00 PM 7:30 PM

10:00PM

THE OPERATIVE9:55 PM

PAVAROTTIC1:00 PM

4:10 PM 7:10 PM

THE BIGGEST LITTLEFARMB

1:30 PM 7:20 PM

TO 17200 WN CENTERVentura Blvd. Encino

MU9036 WilshirSICeBHAlvd.LL Beverly Hills

CLOSEDCAPTION NON-STANDARD PRICING

THE GOLDEN STATE.

DELIVERED.

Sign up for the free Los Angeles Times

Essential California newsletter.

newsletters.latimes.com

Photos: L.A. Times

Call our real estate

advertising experts at

(213) 237-6130.

Go from listed to sold

with Hot Property.

AT THE MOVIES

Genial mirth and the
nightmarish gloom of the
Middle East do not sound
like natural companions,
but the droll and delightful
“Tel Aviv on Fire” has made
the impossible possible.
Directed by Palestinian
Sameh Zoabi, what we have
here is a sly, very human
comedy that is just serious
enough around the edges
about the Israel-Palestine
imbroglio to make us sit up
and take notice. It can’t have
been easy, but it’s a complete
treat to experience.
As co-written by Zoabi
and Dan Kleinman with a
tongue-in-cheek sense of hu-
mor, “Tel Aviv” has very
much of an insider sensibil-
ity, even making the region’s
shared passion for the tast-
iest, most authentic hum-
mus a key subplot.
The film’s heart is a two-
pronged approach that al-
ternates between separate
realities just as its charac-
ters go back and forth be-
tween Israeli and Palestin-
ian worlds.
The first reality isn’t a re-
ality at all, it’s a passionately
pro-Palestinian daily soap
opera that gives the film its
name, a show shot in
Ramallah that’s just as

popular in Israel as in the

West Bank.

Written and directed in

the over-the-top telenovela

style, the soap is set in 1967,

“three months before the Six

Day War” a subtitle omi-

nously tells us.

We begin the show’s plot

with a man and woman

alone in a room, their emo-

tions pitched through the

roof. He is a Palestinian spy-

master and she is a spy, giv-

en a false name and pass-

port and taskedwith seduc-

ing an Israeli general.

“Find this man. We need

his secrets to defeat the Zi-

onists who stole our land,”

the spy is told in between

passionate embraces. In a

trice she emerges as Rachel,

proprietor of Tel Aviv’s most

chic French restaurant with

the general firmly in her

sights.

While this soap opera

world is hyperdramatic,

shot in vivid colors that en-

hance its big emotions, the

lives of the people who put it

on are much more mundane

though equally amusing.

Low man on the show’s

totem pole is Salam, an

underachieving slacker who

has a job as a production as-

sistant only because his un-

cle Bassam (Nadim

Sawalha) is the show’s pro-

ducer and creator.

Impeccably played by

Kais Nashif (who won a best

actor prize at Venice in 2018)

with the perfect dazed and

confused look, Salam lives in

Israel with his mother and is

ineffectually trying to recon-

cile with old girlfriend Mari-

am (Maisa Abd Elhadi), the

woman he infuriated by the

inept way he broke off with

her.

Only on the set to correct

the characters’ Hebrew, na-

tural busybody Salam starts

to question the dialogue in a

way that appeals to lan-

guage-challenged Tala

(Lubna Azabal), the French

actress who plays Rachel,

but enrages the show’s

screenwriter.

Salam’s gift for saying the

wrong thing gets him into

trouble at the checkpoint at

the Israeli border, where he

pretends to be “Tel Aviv on

Fire’s” writer to impress the

man in charge, brusque

Army commander Assi (a

very funny Yaniv Biton).

When another soldier

dismisses the show as “anti-

Semitic,” Assi cracks “it’s

called ‘Tel Aviv On Fire,’ did

you expect it to be Zionist?”

Assi’s wife, as it turns out,

is also a big fan of “Tel Aviv

on Fire,” and the command-

er himself has very definite

ideas of how he wants the

show to turn out.

So definite, in fact, that

Assi tells Salam unless the

show changes its stripes and

goes in his pro-Israel direc-

tion, he will refuse to let the

young man through the

checkpoint he needs to cross

every day.

If Salam not actually be-

ing the show’s writer wasn’t

problem enough, his uncle

the showrunner, not to men-

tion the show’s overseas

backers, have very different

ideas about the conclusion.

(Hint: Bassam very proudly

says he stole it from, of all

things, “The Maltese Fal-

con.”)

If you think this situation

is contrived, you haven’t

heard the half of it, but be-

cause the expert actors in

the cast play it like it was the

most realistic of scenarios,

the humor and the drama

continuously build.

While serious points are

made here— for instance a

throwaway reference to the

Oslo Accordas “another illu-

sion that changed nothing”

—this film’s emphasis, as it

should be, is on humor and

character.

For more than anything,

“Tel Aviv on Fire” is Salam’s

story, a delicious investiga-

tion of the tightrope he

walks between the Israeli

army and his Palestinian

colleagues as well as his di-

lemma of needing to write

and not knowing the first

thing about it.

The more his personal

and professional lives inter-

twine, the more amusing

this unlikely comic success

becomes.

YANIV BITONplays army commander Assi and Kais Nashik is Salam, a production assistant who pretends
he’s the writer of a popular pro-Palestinian TV soap opera in the tongue-in-cheek comedy “Tel Aviv on Fire.”

Patricia PeribezCohen Media Group

REVIEW

Soap opera on a border

Improbably and yet

amusingly, backstage

antics intersect with

the Mideast conflict.

‘Tel Aviv

on Fire’

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour,

37 minutes

Playing:Laemmle’s Royal,

West Los Angeles;

Laemmle Playhouse 7,

Pasadena; Laemmle Town

Center 5, Encino.

At times throughout

Austrian filmmaker Marie

Kreutzer’s arresting psy-

chological character study

“The Ground Beneath My

Feet,” high-powered busi-

ness consultant Lola (Val-

erie Pachner) is shown jolted

by something we don’t no-

tice, but which she clearly

senses. Whether speedily

walking to a meeting or jog-

ging in the early morning or

even sleeping, she’ll be trig-

gered into looking around

her, then keep going, as if

fearful of something that

wants to catch up to her or

break her concentration.

It’s the kind of terrifically

small, even missable charac-

ter touchthat speaks to this

quietly intense gem of a mov-

ie’s larger story of contempo-

rary ambition disrupted by

the distractingly personal.

Talented and ambitious,

Lola, played with vibrating

intelligence by Pachner,

needs to compartmentalize

her life into organized pock-

ets of independence and se-

cretiveness. But what hap-

pens when the contents of

those pockets spill into the

open?

When we meet Lola, who

lives in Vienna but com-

mutes to the north coast of

Germany as part of a team

helping restructure a strug-

gling company, she’s at the

airport when her paranoid

schizophrenic older sister,

Conny (Pia Hierzegger),

tries to commit suicide.

Lola’s colleagues believe her

to be an orphan, deliberately

single and solely focused on

work. They know nothing

about Conny, but Lola’s de-

ception goes both ways —

though always on hand for

emergencies and brief visits,

Lola pretends not to realize

the extent of her sister’s in-

ability to care for herself.

On the job, meanwhile,

Lola is a put-together

dynamo, readily capable of a

“48” — two days’ work with-

out sleep — and deft about

handling an inconvenient

Conny phone call during an

office confab. She’s con-

vinced of an upcoming pro-

motion, and not just be-

cause she and her superior

Elise (Mavie Hörbiger)

share hotel room time to-

gether naked. Lola is great

at what she does, but when

Elise learns of Connythe in-

formation colors the pair’s

relationship. Does it run in

the family? Should Lola

work less and care for her

loved one more? Is Elise

looking out for Lola, or

thinking about what’s best

for her staff?

Kreutzer, who wrote the

screenplay, proves espe-

cially adept, in conjunction

with editor Ulrike Kofler, at

the natural suspense of

pinging between Lola’s pro-

fessional and personal lives,

and where the vulnerabil-

ities in one bleed into the

other. It’s a steady tension

that’s greatly enhanced by

Kreutzer’s spatially con-

scious visual style, reminis-

cent of classic paranoid

thrillers, in which her pro-

tagonist’s placement within

an antiseptic interior or ex-

terior long shot carries sub-

jective pointedness. The

narrative isn’t always tight,

its cringeworthy setbacks

and epiphanies more reflec-

tive of modern life’s seesaw-

ing than any determined

story arc. But throughout,

Kreutzer’s direction is a con-

fident, measured, clear-eyed

compassion for the desire of

any strong-minded woman

in today’s highly scrutinized,

treachery-filled business en-

vironment to handle prob-

lems and make progress

while keeping head, heart

and identity in some kind of

manageable balance.

To that end, “The

Ground Beneath My Feet” is

like the pressed, polished

companion piece to German

writer-director Maren Ade’s

masterfully eccentric and

brilliant 2016 film “Toni Erd-

mann,” which also dissected

a gung-ho female corporate

consultant dealing with in-

trusive family issues. As with

that film, the central per-

formance is key, and Pach-

ner — who also stars in Ter-

ence Malick’s latest, the

Cannes-debuted “A Hidden

Life” — fully embodies the

contradictions and com-

plexities in Lola, whether

taking charge of a close-up

or relying on the physicality

needed for a group scene or

wide shot. She makes every

expression, each bold move

and smoothed-over glitch,

part of the whole woman,

the light and the dark, the

workaholic and the guilt-rid-

den sister, the performance

and the reality. It’s as 21st

century as portrayals get,

and it’s a knockout.

REVIEW

Her mind is on

shaky ‘Ground’

Valerie Pachner holds

together this flawed

gem as a successful

woman unraveling.

By Robert Abele

KENNETH TURAN

FILM CRITIC

‘The Ground

Beneath My

Feet’

In German with English

subtitles

Not rated

Running time:1 hour,

48 minutes

Playing:Laemmle Monica

Film Center, NoHo 7,

Playhouse 7