And the viewers, who so far have patiently accepted the absurdities on the screen, must know, perhaps by some divine intuition, that it’s impossible that the dying man, the receiver of merciful care, will end this strange old film with his own death. A terminal patient with a conscience will not forfeit his role as a caregiver. The big woman leaves, and the audience applauds as the dying man sits bolt upright in bed, rips the oxygen mask from his face, and stares in agony at the slightly unsteady camera. The shaking, deriving from inexperience, fits the mood of the finale. The dead cameraman, beloved by all, comes back to life without surrendering his status as a dying man. In his white gown he wheels the intravenous poles and rushes out of his house, and even the critical and suspicious director cannot help but marvel at this terminal patient wandering like a ghost in the dead of night at the central bus station, clattering his IVs between dark silent buses, pushing them into a workingmen’s café, where a picture on a wall reminds Moses that this is his parents’ living room, now taking the role of a cafeteria thick with cigarette smoke and a bar stocked with colorful bottles, a dubious-looking bartender jovially mixing his concoctions. In the moonlight, from the garden of his childhood home, the camera tracks the silhouette of the innocent girl who gave up on the young man of the broken promise and then let down the woman she took care of and who now waits for the first morning bus to take her back to her village. The familiar cardboard suitcase is at her feet, and along with the flowered sundress, which is no less charming in moonlight, she wears a pretty scarf over her skinny shoulders. She is sad, and when she sees that the one who comes to care for her is himself dying, her despair grows, and she begins to weep.
“When you were young and gay, it was so easy to get you to cry for the camera,” Moses can’t help teasing his actress, “and now it’s hard to get one tear out of you.” “What can you do.” She sighs. “With all the tears I’ve shed in real life, I don’t have any left for your movies, but don’t worry, in your next film, if I must, I’ll cry again.” He nods, saying nothing, not only because he doesn’t want to upset her with the news that there will be no role for her in his next film, but also lest he annoy the audience, hypnotized by the moonlight and the shaky camera. The dying man with his tangle of IV tubes becomes a heroic figure — a character who proves to the whole world, in whispering Spanish, that even in his last hour, a person can breathe hope into the heart of another. The embarrassed smile that breaks out in close-up on the young woman’s face arouses real tears in the eyes of the aging actress watching herself. And after the screen finally goes dark, and lights go on in the hall, Moses promises himself that when he returns to Israel, he will find a copy of the forgotten film and watch it in its original language to determine its true value once and for all.
In the eyes of the audience scrutinizing the director, there may be wonder or bewilderment, but no antagonism or derision. He therefore hopes the questions will not deal with trivial points of realism or believability or with camera techniques, but with the ideas. Since the Spanish that replaced the original language did not allow him full mastery of the film’s details, he asks the director of the archive, who will moderate the discussion, to relay several questions together, figuring to avoid the ones not easily answered.
To his surprise, the questions imply affection for this simple film, and Moses is careful not to undermine it with answers betraying his own ambivalence about his early work. Film teachers and students do not approach movies as consumers demanding satisfaction and enjoyment in exchange for the ticket purchased at the box office; for them, a film is first and foremost material for study and explanation. And since he realized at lunch that in this city of pilgrimage, people tend to seek a symbol behind every detail, he resolves to be tolerant even of allegorical speculation. When one of the older teachers offers a strange interpretation for the visible shaking in the last scene, Moses does not expose his unskilled hand operating the camera but praises the man for his perspicacity, adding that in hindsight he cannot be sure that was the intent. Though the students do center their questions on technical matters and not spiritual issues, the fact that an outdated film made by a group of amateurs in a young small country on a minuscule budget can hold its own after such a long time instills optimism in them too, these young people. And after the priest reveals that Moses’ mother played the first old woman, obvious questions arise, such as: Was it hard for you to direct your own mother? Did she follow your instructions? Why didn’t you try to include your father?
Attention shifts to the actress, her fetching screen presence still lingering in the room. A young woman asks whether the smile that brightened her face at the end of the movie was genuine or produced at the director’s request. In other words, if the scene had happened in real life and not before a camera, and a white ghost dragging intravenous bottles had darted out of the darkness to console her, would she have welcomed it, or run away in terror? Ruth answers firmly, though in poor English. Yes, she would have happily welcomed the dying man, whose care that night would keep her in Jerusalem, and she would not flee the city in the morning.
Then an old farmer speaks. His bald pate reddening with emotion, he asks if he is permitted to think that this dying man, who earned the trust of not only the girl on the screen but also himself as a spectator, will wrestle with death after the film is done and overcome it. Is such hope possible, and was it the intention of the filmmaker?
“No, it wasn’t, but neither does it contradict it,” answers Moses. “The ending of a work of art is an absolute ending, and whoever imagines what happens next speaks only for himself.”
The disappointed farmer slowly sits down, but several of his friends ask for permission to speak. Fearing the local farmers will lower the level of conversation, the priest urges them to keep their questions short, and he answers them himself hastily, and then, to bring the discussion to a close, he poses his own question to the honoree: “Do you yourself believe in the idea of the film you created? In other words, is everyone who receives care also a caregiver?”
Moses is startled by the question but is quick to answer.
“My screenwriter believed it, and in those days I respected his ideas and agreed to direct films based on them. After we went our separate ways, this idea seemed unrealistic to me, since there are invalids who are chronic and stubborn, concerned only with themselves. But today, after watching this film of mine, which I had not seen for decades, I’m ready to give his vision another chance.”
THE ARCHIVE DIRECTOR has two options for the intermission before the next screening. They can further tour the film labs and classrooms, or they can rest in his office, which was once the apartment of the army base commander. It has a modest sofa on which one man can stretch out comfortably. As a devout believer in afternoon naps, Moses chooses the second alternative. In recent years, even on filming days, he has managed to arrange the working day to include an hour or so for a nap. Not even when shooting on location does he pass it up; he crawls, blanket in hand, under the production truck to grab a quick snooze in the oily darkness below the chassis, first making sure the vehicle is locked and the keys are in his pocket.
How good to enter a quiet, spacious room, albeit slightly monkish in character, with logs burning in the hearth. The priest removes two woolen military blankets from the closet, shuts the blinds, disconnects the telephone, and locks the door from the outside.
Moses goes immediately for the couch, but Ruth asks sheepishly if this time she could have it and he make do with the armchair. He is surprised, but he agrees. After all the excitement over her past beauty, she is probably depressed and seeks the consolation of curling into the fetal position.