MOVIE REVIEW : ‘For Sasha’ Complex, Engaging Romance

Alexandre Arcady’s sweeping, deeply engaging “For Sasha” (at the Music Hall and the Town & Country) is an emotion-charged, intimate love story set against the larger drama of Israel’s 1967 Six-Day War. As such it recalls Raoul Walsh’s 1955 World War II saga “Battle Cry” and even “Gone With the Wind.” In addition to being a romance of exceptional complexity and ambiguity, it is also a coming-of-age story and finally a plea for peace between Arabs and Jews.

It, above all, is unusually personal for a film set on such a broad canvas; it is not at all surprising to learn that, while the film is not truly autobiographical, Arcady himself did arrive from Paris at an Israeli kibbutz just before the Six-Day War broke out--just as three young men, all age 20, do at the beginning of “For Sasha.”

They are Paul (Fabien Orcier), an intense and moody aspiring actor; Simon (Niels Dubost), a Christian who is soon captivated by Israel and its challenges, and Michel (Jean-Claude de Goros), who has only girls on his mind. Longtime friends, they were classmates and have decided to pay an unexpected visit, on the eve of her 20th birthday, to the beautiful Laura (Sophie Marceau), also a Christian, whom they all so adored. Two years before, Laura threw over a privileged existence and a promising career as a violinist to follow to Israel their philosophy professor Sasha (Richard Berry), who explains to his former pupils that he wants to live rather than teach his ideals.

Although the film is first and foremost Laura’s story, the pivotal character is Sasha, a man twice Laura’s age. Berry, who has worked with Arcady many times before, may never have been better. He has a charismatic world-weary Bogart-like masculinity and presence, which makes Sasha devastating to women and admired by men. It allows him to suggest that in some aspects the man behind the image is not all that Laura and the three visitors would have him be. There’s no denying that as a paratrooper/kibbutz farmer Sasha has discovered in Israel his roots and his identity. At the same time he’s still very much a Parisian boulevardier , not above a casual fling and capable of inflicting disastrous heartbreak. He projects vulnerability yet possesses a dangerous detachment. Marceau is marvelous as Laura and so are the actors who play her visiting pals, but it’s Berry who dominates and rightly so.

As for the background for all this emotional turmoil, Arcady convincingly paints the kibbutz as offering a warm and inviting communal way of life in a beautiful bucolic setting that in this particular instance, however, is just below the Golan Heights, where Syrian soldiers track the kibbutzniks’ every move. Remarkably, Arcady, having made a film that is such a stirring tribute to Israel and its struggle to survive, suggests nevertheless that the Six-Day War is in a sense a hollow victory, delaying the time when Israel must inevitably come to terms with the Arab world in general and the Palestinians in particular.

‘For Sasha’

(‘Pour Sacha’)

Sophie Marceau: Laura

Richard Berry: Sasha

Fabien Orcier: Paul

Niels Dubost: Simon

Jean-Claude de Goros: Michel

An MK2 Productions USA release. Director Alexandre Arcady. Producers Arcady, Diane Kurys. Executive producer Robert Benmussa. Screenplay by Arcady, Daniel Saint Hamont with the collaboration of Antoine Lacomblez. Dialogue Saint Hamont, Arcady. Cinematographer Robert Alazraki. Editor Martine Barraque. Music Philippe Sarde. Production design Tony Egry. Sound Jean-Louis Ughetto. In French, Hebrew, English, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

Times-rated Mature (adult themes and situations).