To be a desperate housewife is not limited to Wisteria Lane, desperate housewives live all over the United States and all over the world, living lives of quiet desperation. In the movie, Avanim, there exists a Middle Eastern woman who lives such a life. Written and directed by Raphael Nadjari, the movie follows recent events in the life of Michaeli, an Israeli who works for her father at his accounting firm in an a deeply religious Yemeni community in Israel. She is the adoring mother of one son and the unhappy wife of a local building contractor who works long hours and is rarely home.
Desparate housewives are not just on Wisteria Lane
Micheli is disgusted by the hypocrisy of the religious elite.
Michaeli cannot support her father's 'ends justify the means' philosophy in regards to this project, but being a woman in a male dominated society, her voice goes unheard. The religious hypocrisy that she routinely observes leaves a bad taste in her mouth and pushes her to question and challenge the religious elite. The day that the final papers are to be signed by the rabbi, she calls her lover to arrange a rendez-vous at the same cafe. After the meeting she goes to meet her lover, but the meeting is never to take place, her lover is killed in a suicide bombing and she is devastated. This tragedy becomes the catalyst that forces her to re-examine her life. She is not allowed to openly mourn for her lover because she is a married woman and to do so would create additional problems. She instead uses the grief to break the chains of her repression and make some radical life changes that rock her marriage, her relationship with her father, and the religious community, which creates more tragedy in her life, but with her newfound sense of independence she does not look back.
She does not look back
FRANCE/ISRAEL.
106 MIN.
DIRECTOR / WRITER Raphael Nadjari
PRODUCERS Geoffroy Grison, Marek Rozenbaum, Itai Tamir CAST Asi Levi, Uri Gabriel, Florence Bloch, Shaul Mizrahi, Danny Steg, Gabi Amrani-Gur, Eli Eltonyo
For more information on this film go to: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362427