Description of a Memory (2005)

DESCRIPTION OF A MEMORY examines the complexities of Israel's history through the lens of Chris Marker's 1960 film DESCRIPTION OF A STRUGGLE (DESCRIPTION D'UN COMBAT), a portrait of the country made 13 years after its founding. Marker went to Israel as an outsider, looking to discover the spirit of the young country through its "language of signs." He found a place whose unique moral and political obligations could provide a new, humane model of nationhood to the world. In DESCRIPTION OF A MEMORY, director Dan Geva, an Israeli, explores what has happened in his homeland in the years since with a more critical eye, asking whether the promises Marker identified have been fulfilled. Structured by thirteen memories, the film is an open-ended, essayistic meditation on the distance between the ideals that fueled the creation of Israel and the realities of its history.