A Body in Every Cellar

When asked why their highly successful second feature, Big Bad Wolves (2013), focuses on pedophilia and violence directed against children, Israeli filmmakers Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado explain that, "for us, childhood essentially reflects a state of innocence and naivete. At the same time, the world to which we are born is saturated with violence and brutality. No matter what you do, you will always be exposed to violence. Every time violence breaks out, you soak it up like a passive smoker. You cannot escape it, and it informs your personality in myriad, mostly unrecognized, ways."1This claustrophobic, pessimistic, and morbid description of everyday reality, which equates violence with the suffocating smell of cigarettes refusing to evaporate from human bodies and clothes, can be found in a surprising number of Israeli features made between 2010 and 2015. These films-many of which have become festival hits and premiered in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, or Tribeca-depict a reality characterized by persistent, ubiquitous, and quotidian violence. Contrary to the most recent wave of "conflict films" that take place on the battlefield, such as Beaufort ( Joseph Cedar, 2007), Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008), Lebanon (Samuel Maoz, 2009), or Rock the Casbah (Yariv Horowitz, 2012), the tormenting stories of the "New Violence" movement emerge and play out within the claustrophobic confines of the domestic sphere. Instead of a distant, faraway frontline, the new combat zones are to be found everywhere: between the living room and the kitchen, the streets of Tel Aviv and the luxury villas of the wealthy beachfront district Herzliya Pituah.As in Big Bad Wolves, violence is present in almost every scene in films such as Keshales and Papushado's Rabies (2010), Hagar Ben-Asher's The Slut (2011), Michal Aviad's Invisible (2011), Dana Goldberg's Alice (2012), Johnathan Gurfinkel and Rona Segal's Six Acts (2012), Tom Shoval's Youth (2013), Maya Dreifuss's She Is Coming Home (2013), Eitan Gafny's zombie parody Cannon Fodder (2013), Tali Shalom-Ezer's Princess (2014), Keren Yedaya's That Lovely Girl (2014), and Veronica Kedar's Endtime (2014), along with other recent works. Whereas these films confront their viewers with disturbing taboos, including pedophilia, incest, rape, and torture, other young filmmakers focus their attention on social violence and economic inequalities. This group includes Nadav Lapid's Policeman (2011), Idan Hubel's The CutoffMan (2012), Amir Manor's Epilogue (2012), and Noam Kaplan's Manpower (2014), all of which are dark indie dramas protesting the waning of the Israeli middle class and the growing gap between those who have and those who have not.This essay will map, explore, and interpret the recurring themes, concerns, and "confrontational aesthetic" these films share, but it is important to acknowledge the risks such an undertaking entails.2 As with any scholarly endeavor based on the notion of a "new" cultural wave, genre, or movement, film scholars wishing to identify and isolate a new cinematic period must be able to provide evidence for at least three different claims: first, that the works grouped together are substantially different from works that preceded them; second, that despite the many differences among the works, they share similar styles, themes, plotlines, or concerns; and third, that these similarities correlate with a specific national, cultural, economic, or political sphere in which the films have been made.Following this triad structure of analysis, this essay draws inspiration from two cinematic movements: the postmillennial "New Extremism" in European cinema3 and Israel's "New Sensitivity" movement of the 1960s and 1970s.4 As I will later demonstrate, the current wave in Israeli cinema might well be termed the "New Violence" movement.In their study of the European New Extremism, Tanya Horeck and Tina Kendall foreground the drawbacks of using the word "new" in relation to a cinematic style:In using this term, we do not wish to suggest that the extremism of these films is unprecedented; nor do we intend to enumerate a comprehensive catalogue of new, or newly extreme, practices or representations. …