In the meantime, Moshe’s meanderings are intercut with those of Uri (Itay Tiran, “Lebanon”) a glib, arrogant writer manque who is headed down to the harbor to board a ship that will take him abroad, away from his military reserve duty and far from the mess he has made of his personal life. He’s also key to some vital and poignant exposition that emerges so late in the tale that some viewers may have already checked out. Moshe starts his quest at the bottom and works his way upward, encountering various neighborhood characters on the way, including a witty Arab-Israeli lawyer with a penchant for handing out baklava, an elderly woman who needs to be carried up a few flights, and, most fatefully, Shaul (Ohad Shahar), the owner of an electronics shop who turns out to be the missing link in his quest for the absent earring. When he sees that she is missing one of her earrings from a pair that he gave her for their wedding, he secretly decides to see if he can find it on the public stairs where she says she might have lost it. Even his musician wife, Na’va (Michaela Eshet), treats him like a schlub. Still, Jewish fests should step up, and Israeli broadcast play is guaranteed.Īt first glance, pudgy, middle-aged Moshe (Uri Klauzner) appears to be a kindly dreamer destined to be one of life’s losers.
Tyro Israeli helmer-writer Elad Keidan, winner of Cannes’ Cinefondation with the short “Anthem” in 2008, here riffs on the human-terrarium style of that earlier work, incorporating distancing long shots, a slow pace, annoying repetition and protagonists who just amble along the result is more, er, pedestrian and attenuated than cinematic. In the ultra-low-key absurdist comedy “Afterthought,” two troubled men meet in the middle of Haifa’s long, steep stone stairs running from the top of Mount Carmel down to the port, as one ascends and the other descends.
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