A STILL FROM WOMEN IN SINK[SPOILER ALERT]Relaxed by having their heads massaged, women talk about life in Israel as they see itFor her little documentary
Women in Sink, young Anglo-Israeli filmmaker Iris Zaki uses a brilliantly simple device. She attaches a camera over the shampooing sink at Fifi's, a hair salon in Haifa run by a Christian Arab woman. It's a smart setup: the ladies are relaxed by having their heads massaged and sloshed with warm water and caressed by gentle hands with slippery shampoo; the gleaming black porcelain of the sink makes a dramatic background, setting off the faces. Zaki does the shampooing (it's not rocket science), chatting with her clients as she does so, drawing out their experiences and views about Arabs and Jews, the current state of Israel, and their own lives. Throughout the interviews, Zaki skillfully maintains a low profile and allows the women to speak uninhibitedly.
The views that spill out of the "women in sink" are clearly not in sync with Zaki or each other: there is quite a range of political views. A Palestinian friend who's seen this film said Zaki has chosen to study the Jewish Israeli center from the viewpoint of its margin -- the filmmaker at the margin, the rest out there in the middle. At least one Jewish woman expresses outrageous misconceptions about the Palestinians (a word never used), saying they get equal treatment now, and were never originally made to leave but urged to stay. Another expresses more liberal views. She is not pleased with the occupation, with how Arabs are treated, with how both Arabs and Jews are raised to fear each other. She says mixed preschools work well to create a mood of mutual tolerance, and wishes there were more of these. One customer says, inevitably, that things would be much more gently managed if women were in charge. (What about Angela Merkel? Margaret Thatcher? Golda Meir?)
One talking-head-in-the-sink complains that Israel has provided less help to Holocaust survivors, like her, than European countries have done. Others note the prevailing macho, militaristic mood of the country and say it is becoming worse, even the young moving constantly to the right. But individually, the clients on camera, one of whom turns out to have been coming to the salon since 1983, see their own lives as currently okay. The salon's proprietor, whose hair Zaki washes twice, is happy being single and having put her business first.
As one of the clients says and as is probably true of hair salons, little and big, the world over, there is a clubbish, family feeling about Fifi's. One client tells how the staff here helped her get through a time when a close relative was seriously ill. Being an outsider, and the setup being somewhat artificial, despite the relaxing effect of being shampooed, Zaki doesn't get to overhear any intimate local secrets. But it's clear this is a place where women come to connect, gossip, and relax.
The proprietor is happy to live in Israel, among Jews; it feels right to her. A Jewish client says the proprietor's being Arab does not bother her at all; in fact during the Intifada, she says, she felt it was even more important to show support and friendliness toward Arabs.The spirit of coexistence must be essential to the clientele of such a place. A rabidly anti-Arab lady would not be likely to patronize a hairdresser's run by an Arab woman located in the Arab part of town.
The blurb about this film led one to think it would be more vivid and colorful -- and more Arab. It describes this as being set at "a little hair salon in [Wadi Nisnas] the heart of the Arab community of Haifa." One had expected an Arab atmosphere, and for Arabic to be spoken. My friend thought there may have been more Arab women present than we see, but others may have been afraid of being filmed. In any case, why there are not more Arab women in an Arab-run hair salon in the Arab part of Haifa, Israel's most Arab-friendly city, is unexplained. In the film, even the Arab women speak only Hebrew except for a phrase or two. None of the women who figure in the documentary is a Muslim by faith, though there are several Christian women and one happens to be of mixed Christian-Muslim parents.
Iris Zaki has found a neat way to make a documentary and has provided an intimate portrait of Haifa, if a partial one. In the end, one has not learned much about Wadi Nisnas, the Arab quarter of Haifa where Fifi's salon is located. Fifi's, as seen by Zaki, dwells somewhat in a protected bubble. But its regulars still provide a cross section of Israel today, from the female angle.
The film flips through many faces, seemingly recording snapshots of every one of the women whose hair Zaki washed, including, several times, Fifi's, but dwells only on a selected few. The constant chatter is relieved in the film by brief pauses featuring Arab music and shots of the wider activity in the busy little salon showing women coming and going, snacking, or in the chairs having their hair done, and employees sweeping up curls that have fallen to the floor.
In 2012 Zaki received the award for best documentary in the student competition at the Astra documentary festival in Romania for her short film
My Kosher Shifts. It depicted her conversations with the Hasidic clientele registered on a fixed camera while working part time on the desk of an Orthodox Jewish hotel in London, the Croft Court, in Golders Green, where she found visitors were eager to talk to her. (This film was described in detail in the
Forward.) Her new film is an extension of this method. Maybe next time she needs to disappear more from her film. But her economy of means and ease with her subjects promise that she may be an Israeli documentarian to watch, one with a distinctive woman's touch.
Women in Sink, 36 mins., debuted April 2015 at the Visions du réel fest at Nyon, Switzerland and won the short film jury prize. Also showed at Karlovy Vary. Screened for this review as part of the 2015 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Presented at the Castro Theatre Tuesday, July 28 12:00 pm and at the Lakeside Theater Friday, August 7 12:30 pm.
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