David O'ConnellA Matter of Size @ The Israeli Film Festival
August 17th 2010 06:12
Not everything that registers on the radar of Israeli filmmakers need be darkness without light. To redress the imbalance, here’s a feel-good comedy designed with broad appeal in mind. An underlying message about appreciating one another for who we are rather than who we're not doesn’t hurt the commercial prospects of Sharon Maymon and Erez Tadmor’s A Matter of Size. Indeed this amiable, often very humourous comedy floats far and wide on the innate likeability of its over-proportioned stars and their desire to overcome physical obstacles and pummel petty prejudices to dust.
In Meseka, Israel, Herzl (Itzik Cohen) is having a hard time overcoming unfavourable preconceptions and the decidedly heavy cost of his own culinary cravings. Weighing in at 155 kilos, Herzl is informed by the leader of his weight loss club that he is being unceremoniously expelled for continual gains that threaten to permanently harm the group's virtuous image of inexorable progress. Herzl rightly counters with an opposing argument that "self-hate" is being sold to the members to ensure the kilos disappear and storms out.
To make matters worse, he then gets fired from his job as a salad bar chef because a number of patrons make complaints about his unsightly appearance. An overweight man is apparently enough to put some folk off their food. Poor Herzl protests but must ultimately tack on to the end of the unemployment line.
He decides to try his luck at a recently opened Japanese restaurant. Rather than being offered a chef position he’s assigned dishwashing duties but notices the footage of Sumo wrestlers in action on the in-house TV. He immediately recognises a vastly different perception of ‘large’ people: in Japan the public seems to view these impressive warriors with awe and respect.
Herzl concocts a crazy idea of learning to wrestle from scratch and pleads with owner, and former Sumo referee Kitano (the underused but always sublime Togo Igawa) to be his guiding light through the fundamentals of the sport. He recruits his equally unfit, chubby friends as training partners, including best friend Aharon (Dvir Benedek), whose wife treats him like a leper and is most likely engaged in infidelity, and closet gay Gidi (Alon Dahan) who trawls the internet at night in search of men with a fetish for big hairy masculine beasts to hook up with.
Zehava (Irit Kaplan) and Herzl (Itzik Cohen)
Running concurrent to Herzl’s misfortunes is his burgeoning relationship with dietician Zehava (Irit Kaplan), the lone positive force in his life but she despises the thought of him Sumo wrestling and so he must deceive her whilst secretly continuing to master his new craft under Kitano’s tutelage. Complicating matters, Herzl’s controlling mother disapproves of his choice of companion insisting he deserves better than a fat girl.
Kitano is a predictably inscrutable but generous teacher, espousing nuggets of wisdom to the men such as how “losing with honour is more important than winning.” Their regimes are never totally convincing but the point is in the principle of positive action, and the various montages of their misadventures in the training ring, including the unveiling of their mawashis (sumo loincloths) - diligently stitched by Herzl’s mum no less - is cause for good-natured laughter.
Ultimately A Matter of Size (2009)is impossible to dislike despite its simplicity. It approaches its most productive ideas by employing a conventional but tried-and-true methodology, making the bright assumption that our empathy will kick in and ably assist us to love these characters.
The performances of all are finely tuned to take advantage of the ripest comedic moments whilst the central relationship between Herzl and Zehava has a definable tenderness that you’d need to be heart-hearted to avoid being won over by.
Beyond the basic contrivance is the core of many uncomfortable truths: prejudice will crush spirits and deprive us of motivation; skin-deep is as far as some in this world will delve before the crudest assumptions are made. An underdog mentality drives the film on to its melancholy affirmation of life but regardless, it’s hard to resent the manipulation of something with its heart so unambiguously set in the right place.
Thunder rolled down from the hills
The 2010 Israeli Film Festival:
Melbourne 17 – 22 August
Sydney 31 August – 5 September
The official website with full details can be found here.
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