Roman Summer

Last night, instead of sleeping at a reasonable hour I was up late and came across Spielberg's Munich on HBO. Even though I've seen it many times, it's been awhile and I couldn't help but get pulled in. It's crazy to think that it's been fifteen years since it was released back in 2005. It feels like another lifetime ago.

I happened to be watching during the initial sequence abroad in Rome - the assassination of Wael Zwaiter, which took place in a deserted residential lobby along Viale Eritrea, just steps from Piazza Annibaliano. I never ventured to this part of the city or explored similar Roman neighborhoods in the north, but other recollections of my visit almost ten years ago this summer came flooding back. The same thing happened recently when I also found myself revisiting Bertolucci's La Luna, which spurred thoughts of Jill Clayburgh intertwined with those from my nearly two weeks in Trastevere and the late summer nights in local piazzas and along the Tiber. I will try to get to some of these things another time.

I later caught a glimpse of one of Gila Almagor's brief scenes as Avner's mother. This was the scene in the hospital in Tel Aviv just after the birth of his son and before his return to Europe. Not long after I finished my army service and returned from Rome, I began working at an office in central Tel Aviv on the corner of Kaplan and Ibn Gvirol. One night on my way back from work I happened to pass by HaBima Square and ran into Gila Almagor of all people outside a cafe terrace. It was only a brief encounter, with little more than a mutually exchanged acknowledgement and a few words of pleasantries, but there was an unspoken warmth and I still remember it all really well. There's a reason why she is an Israeli icon and the queen of cinema, and for one relatively new oleh still getting his feet after the army in Tel Aviv, it was a special moment.

Munich 2005