Moving in elliptical orbit around the 1962 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, one of the key architects of the Holocaust, June Zero approaches a milestone event in Israel’s history from an oblique angle. Many previous films, both drama and documentary, have covered the same topic, the majority focussed on the fugitive Eichmann’s capture by Mossad agents while living undercover in Argentina in 1960. Most recently, Chris Weitz’s Operation Finale (2018) retold this gripping story with a starry cast including Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley. But director Jake Paltrow (brother of Gwyneth) and screenwriter Tom Shoval make the bold decision to examine Eichmann’s final failed appeal and execution more remotely, through the eyes of various fringe players, their lives intersecting only incidentally. The circular plot becomes a series of loosely linked chapters, in the style of La Ronde.
Shot in sun-drenched 16mm with dialogue almost entirely in Hebrew, June Zero puts a handsome and imaginative spin on real historical events. But it is let down by its wobbly tone and clunky delivery, too often lurching between soapy melodrama and stilted comedy. World premiering at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival this week, Paltrow’s heartfelt homage to his Jewish family ancestry will likely find its biggest audience as an educational tool to Israeli schoolchildren. Indeed, screen credits for the Israeli culture ministry and The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany suggest this may be part of the film’s official mission. But in the growing canon of post-Holocaust cinema, this is no more than a minor footnote. Following KVIFF it will next screen at Jerusalem Film Festival in late July.
The opening chapter of June Zero revolves around David (sparky screen novice Noam Ovadia), a scrappy 13-year-old troublemaker recruited to work for hard-nosed ex-military factory boss Shlomo (Tzahi Grad). Increasingly defiant in the face of casual racism towards his Arab heritage, David earns his place in Shlomo’s inner circle, joining a hush-hush mission to build the cremation oven that will burn Eichmann’s body after he has been hanged.
By destroying his remains and scattering the ashes at sea, the Israeli authorities are determined to prevent Eichmann’s final resting place becoming a site of neo-Nazi pilgrimage. But as cremation is forbidden under Jewish religious law, this trial-and-error task is mostly presented as a comic romp, despite some unsettling echoes of the ovens used to burn murdered Jewish prisoners at the Nazi death camps. Paltrow’s decision to book-end the film with David’s coming-of-age journey feels corny and contrived, sugar-coating some otherwise pretty heavy material.
The dramatic spotlight then falls on Hayim (Yoav Levi), a prison guard charged with watching over Eichmann as he awaits his final death sentence. One of Hayim’s key tasks is to make sure no European Jews with Holocaust connections get close to the prisoner, sabotaging the wider cause of justice by taking personal revenge. But as he is still dazed from a minor car accident, he becomes paranoid and confused, hallucinating danger in the shadows. Pointedly giving minimum screen space to Eichmann, who is only half-glimpsed in profile or from behind, this section is an uneasy mix of psychological thriller and gentle farce, with Hayim as a kind of bumbling Inspector Clouseau type.
By far the strongest chapter of June Zero in only marginally related to Eichmann. One of the investigators involved in the trial is Micha (Tom Hagy), a survivor of the Nazi death camps around Auschwitz-Birkenau, who is closely based on the real Michael “Miki” Goldman. On a trip to Poland to share his grim Holocaust memories with a touring group of American Jews, Micha is cornered by earnest young official Ada (Joy Rieger), who warns him against turning these sites of unfathomable suffering into tourist attractions. “You don’t have to rent out your pain,” she assures him. “I don’t want ‘never forget’ to become ‘only remember’…” But Micha replies with a stirring, dignified, poetic speech about the urgent need to keep history alive.
Almost a stand-alone stage play, this crisp two-hander is a masterful mini-seminar in how humankind should process painful personal trauma and memorialise genocidal horror. Standing in for Poland here is pre-invasion Ukraine, accidentally lending these scenes an extra layer of tragic historical resonance. This brief episode gives June Zero a powerful emotional kick, but it is not enough to save Paltrow’s uneven patchwork drama from feeling like a failed experiment overall.
Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Special Screenings)
Vast: Noam Ovadia, Tzahi Grad, Yoav Levi, Tom Hagi, Joy Rieger, Ami Smolarchik, Rotem Kainan, Adam Gabai, Koby Aderet.
Director: Jake Paltrow
Screenplay: Jake Paltrow, Tom Shoval
Cinematography: Yaron Scharf
Editor: Ayelet Gil-Efrat
Music: Ariel Marx
Producers: David Silber, Miranda Bailey, Oren Moverman
Production companies: Metro Communications (Israel), Cold Iron Pictures (US), The Film Arcade (US)
World sales: Films Boutique, Berlin
In Hebrew, Arabic, English
105 minutes
