Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize for First Israeli Film at the 2014 Jerusalem Film Festival, Bazi Gete’s simple, stripped down Red Leaves follows Masganio, an elderly Ethiopian emigrant searching for a suitable new home among his children following his wife’s death.
A resident in Israel for nearly three decades, Masganio is a strong-willed man with clear and simple ideas about how life should be lived. He stubbornly holds onto traditional Ethiopian customs and values, and expects his children to do the same. He has no interest in assimilating to the culture that now surrounds him, or to the imperfect adult lives of his children. When his wife passes away, he announces to his family that he has sold the family apartment and has no intention of scaling down to a more manageable apartment or moving into a retirement home. He sees it as his children's duty to care for him in his own age, and sets about trying their homes and families on for size.
The film takes on an episodic structure as Masganio settles into the daily life of his children's homes, watching them with a silent, critical eye until he is ready to confront what he sees as their fatal shortcomings. He is consistently disappointed by grandchildren who show little to no interest in their Ethiopian roots, daughters-in-law who do not share his traditional ideas about gender roles and sons too weak to assert their dominance. This leads to a series of slow-burning, multi-dimensional conflicts which Gete's talented cast play out with an unhurried authenticity and humanity that is beautiful to behold. It is worth nothing that, besides the well-established Debebe Eshetu as Masganio, the cast is made up of untrained first-timers. It's a gamble that pays off beautifully under Gete's assured direction.
Debebe Eshetu deserves particular acclaim, playing a difficult character without apology or sentiment. He owns the screen with small glances and silent reactions and manages to convey Masganio's uncompromising world view with a conviction and clarity that is as frustrating as it is human. Bazi Gete’s stripped down, near documentary style is perfectly suited to his protagonist. Camera coverage is simple, music is minimal and drama unfolds at the pace of the un-showy actors. The writing is spare, finely tuned and observational. Gete gives his actors room to breathe and his audience plenty of space to reflect and make their own judgments.
Right up to Red Leaves' quietly devastating finale, Masganio marches defiantly onward, constantly alienating himself from a world, and family, that will not play by his rules. He never seems to consider that holding onto the past might be a losing battle in a new world and that immigrants in foreign countries, and individuals wanting to be part of a family, eventually run out of options if they refuse to change.
