An American Hippie in Israel (1972) and How Violence Affects Audiences

Human beings are the worst animals on the planet.  Some people might argue that we are more civilized and therefore more aware of our surroundings and how we affect everything around us.  That does not make humans any better than other animals.  In fact, civilization and intelligence has only led to more destruction with different motivation behind it.  Most animals fight and kill based on instinctual urges.  “I marked my territory.  You stepped in it.  Now you must die.”  That kind of thing.  Humans, on the other hand, fight for politics, beliefs, power, and as many Americans say, freedom.

People also have the added destructive power of mechanical weaponry.  Bombs have destroyed many homes, cities, and lives throughout the wars in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  The entire Cold War was predicated upon The United States of America (USA) and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) being able to wipe out the planet with the push of a button due to their nuclear missiles.  Air raids were commonplace as people feared the end of the world approaching.  Another common weapon is a gun.  Guns are very prevalent in the current day and age as more and more mass shootings occur at an exceedingly rapid pace.  Mass shootings are reported almost daily.  In 1999, a couple of students went to their school in Columbine, Colorado and shot and killed 12 people.  In 2007, a student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University shot and killed 32 people in two separate attacks.  In July 2012, a man in Aurora, Colorado killed 12 people and injured many more in a shooting at a theater playing The Dark Knight Rises.  This would soon be followed in December 2012 by a man shooting and killing 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  Even just last week, there was a mass shooting in Paris, France where over 100 people were killed.  These are off the top of my head.  Many more have occurred throughout the years.

The devastation of these real life events cannot be translated well to film.  Audiences have been desensitized to this kind of stuff through the glorification similar material gets in the summer action blockbusters that crowd the cinemas every year.  Transformers shows action on a level so big that it outdoes the destruction of the human race.  There are still intense moments of destruction in movies.  Don’t get me wrong.  But there is a lack of fear and concern when it comes to the lives lost in all of the destruction.  People, myself included, have no worry about these kinds of catastrophes happening in movies, even though our world is filled with these events on a daily basis.  If it isn’t happening to them, it doesn’t matter.  It is meaningless.  They will continue to live their civilized lives without a worry at all.  You know, first world problems and such.  How will they pay their bills?  Who will they Netflix and chill with?  What did Kim Kardashian do this time?  That kind of stuff.

As a society, we are more terrified by losing our civility than the lack of it that we truly have.  What scares people more than the dangerous nature of our species as it currently is would be when people act uncivilized and rely upon their base instincts.  The more horrific imagery to audiences isn’t when people are getting shot or buildings are exploding and falling down.  It is when people act like savages.  Horror does not stem from the large scale destruction caused by Superman and Zod fighting through the climax of Man of Steel.  Audiences weren’t on the edge of their seats worrying about what would happen to someone in one of the buildings destroyed by the fighting.  We are instead fearful of any Lord of the Flies type of situation in which people are removed from their comfortable life and placed into a situation where they regress into the violent ways of our less civilized past generations.  It is not true that past generations were more violent.  Terrorism, deaths due to guns, and other violent actions are a part of our everyday lives.  Two of the largest wars in history, the two World Wars, took place in the past hundred years.  Yet movies like to go back to the base instincts to induce some sort of tension in the audience.

An American Hippie in Israel is a movie that attempts to make the audience fear the civilized world that I wrote about, before the movie turns into one of the savage human stories that resonates so well.  The movie follows an American hippie named Mike (Asher Tzarfati) who travels to Israel to live a life of freedom.  He meets up with Elizabeth (Lily Avidan), Francoise (Tzila Karney), and Komo (Shmuel Wolf).  The four of them go on a road trip filled with dancing, nudity, and all around good vibes before settling on an isolated island.  When their boat goes missing, savagery emerges amongst the four friends.  Spoilers ahead for the movie.

The current cultural climate of the world comes to the forefront in the earlier portion of An American Hippie in Israel.  One of the reasons that Mike went to Israel was to escape two mysterious men who have been following him everywhere he goes.  This could be seen as a personification of “the man.”  These men represent all that is wrong with the current society as I have previously described.  They spread terror in the same way that it is spread in modern times.  They use mechanical weapons to strike down the people that go against what they want.  The culmination of this is during a scene in which a lot of counter-culture free spirits are partying.  The two men enter and fire guns throughout the room in order to kill everyone.  Only Mike and his three friends escape with their lives.  It is shocking but doesn’t leave a lasting impression because of what follows.

In a final attempt to escape the men, the four amigos go on a road trip.  The road trip ends with them taking a boat out to a deserted island.  For the first little while, Mike and company have a good time.  They skinny dip.  There are late night dance parties.  And they express their hatred of modern society by screaming how they feel.  Then their boat goes missing.  The four friends are stranded on a desolate island surrounded by sharks.  They turn savage and begin to fight with one another in exceedingly violent ways.  An American Hippie in Israel ends on some horrific imagery as the four former comrades wrestle to the death atop a goat, killing each other and the goat in the process.  Yes, an animal was harmed during the making of this film.  This final scene is treated much more seriously and terrifyingly than the earlier scene of mass murder.

The depiction of violence throughout An American Hippie in Israel mirrors how society sees this kind of violent material when it comes to entertainment.  The mass shooting is swept under the carpet of the movie in order so show more fun, free-spirited bonding moments.  The four main characters are focused on dancing and getting naked.  They don’t fret too much over the fact that their acquaintances were gunned down right in front of them.  And as an audience, we are expected to also leave that situation without much afterthought.  However, the movie builds up the savagery, explicitly showing how bad it gets.  It never relieves the pressure being built.  Instead, it comes to a head, explodes, and the movie ends.  There is no denouement and the final thought the movie leaves you with is how bad things got when Mike and his pals devolved into savages on the island.

An American Hippie in Israel is a good movie to look at when you think about the different thoughts that people have on how good or bad they are.  The movie showcases savagery as the worst.  It also shows that modern society is bad, but it makes the savagery depicted at the end out to be the worst threat.  Civilization may be bad.  Savagery is worse.  That isn’t necessarily true, as terrorists such as ISIS are showing us.  Weaponized people are just as bad as savages, if not worse.  It doesn’t matter.  Humans are just bad.  There’s no stopping it.  There will always be violence among our species.

There will also be notes at the end of this post:

• This movie was suggested by @octoeggman and @JonnyLonely.
• I mentioned Transformers.  I watched the Asylum knock-off series Transmorphers a while back.
• What do you think about how different forms of person on person violence are presented in movies?  Do you think that savagery is taken more seriously?  Have you seen An American Hippie in Israel?  What did you think?  Answer these questions or talk about other stuff related to this post in the comments section below.
• Do you have a movie that you think I should watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies?  You can put your suggestion in the comments or tell me on Twitter.
• Next week is the three year anniversary of Sunday “Bad” Movies.  That means that it is one of the annual rewatches.  The first anniversary saw me rewatching The Oogieloves in theBig Balloon Adventure.  For the second anniversary, I rewatched Winter’s Tale.  This year, the movie voted by my Twitter followers has been Mac and Me.  So next week will be the second Mac and Me post.