Film Movement
Galia picks up the phone and learns that her fiancé’s condition has “deteriorated.” The funeral comes next. Galia and Oren were on a Jerusalem bus destroyed by a suicide bomber. The glove on her hand is the first clue that parts of her body were burned. Unlike Oren, she survives, but is traumatized. Galia has anxiety in public spaces, jumps at loud sounds, sees ghosts.
Seven Minutes in Heaven by Israeli director Omri Givon is a superb film transcending its background in the intractable Palestinian conflict. In a pattern of apparent coincidences, Galia keeps encountering Boaz, a young man eager to help. She is drawn to him yet wary. If Seven Minutes in Heaven begins to seem like another story of redemption on the rebound, it soon leans elsewhere through the gradual unblocking of memories and the possibility of parallel realities. Galia was considered medically dead for seven minutes. Are the Orthodox Jews correct in their belief that sometimes the soul ascends to the infinite, only to be given another chance for another life?
Seven Minutes is one of four contemporary films on the DVD set “Faces of Israel,” packaged along with Campfire, For My Father and Human Resources Manager. Two of the other three films also deal with suicide bombing, a testimony to the pervasive anxiety of Israeli society.
Enjoy this clip from the movie:
