Rabin: The Last Day is 153 minutes long with subtitles and was a mix of drama and archival footage in an attempt to accomplish an in depth exploration that mirrors the depicted investigations of events surrounding Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. As an outsider looking in, I was at a severe disadvantage and found it incredibly hard to focus on the film, which is my problem, and should not necessarily be attributed to the filmmaker.
I’ve recently discovered that I have a problem connecting with foreign films in foreign languages about historical events when I am not familiar with the people, places and other relevant factors to sufficiently anchor myself to distinguish who and what is important and crucial and what is descriptive and enhancing. For instance, in Rabin: The Last Day, it was not always obvious to me what was real and what was recreation. I imagine that if you are familiar with watching the footage of the assassination, you can spot the killer immediately, but I can barely recognize Rabin in the crowd, and I knew who he was. To further complicate matters, the narrative is not linear and often jumps around time periods. I was never able to grasp the full rhythm of the narrative, but I believe that there was a logical framework that was more obvious as the movie unfolded. By the end, I believe that I grasped the filmmaker’s conclusion: the chilling suggestion that the assassination was not caused by one man, but the societal dehumanization of Palestinians by the Israeli right culminated in the rationalization that murder was just if it furthered such an outcome and led to Benjamin Netanyahu getting elected.
Rabin: The Last Day even goes so far as to imply that Netanyahu consciously mobilized this base impulse against his opponent. After watching the documentary Zero Days and seeing his warm reception of Presidon’t, which has been counter-intuitive to me considering Presidon’t’s explicit endorsement by and for Nazis, I’m receptive to the film’s attribution of fault to him. I also think that the film was effective because it made me uncomfortable by showing the fanatical flaws of Rabin’s detractors and noticing an overlap in Presidon’t’s opponents, which does not necessarily mean that they are wrong about Presidon’t, but is disturbing nevertheless. Rabin’s detractors claim that Rabin is mentally ill without actually using objective medical evidence such as examining him directly and call him a Nazi. I think that anything that challenges your beliefs and causes reflection is objectively good.
On the other hand, Rabin’s detractors also share many traits with Presidon’t’s supporters as they have rallies calling for Rabin’s death and use fire to burn his effigy. The most striking aspect is the idea that the assassin is a law student who does not care about the fact that he violated the law, but prefers a fanatical reading of religious texts to justify his actions. Basically his religious leader said Rabin was bad so he was bad. His detractors are berserkers consciously stirred into a frenzy and unwilling to entertain any thoughts that do not come from their leaders or counter their worldviews. I’m assuming that unlike ancient Israel and Judah, modern day Israel is not supposed to be a theocracy yet it is simultaneously implicitly acceptable to behave as if it were.
Rabin: The Last Day also has an Oliver Stone’s JFK quality as witnesses suggest that security was either consciously complicit or egregiously negligent that it amounted to a literal conspiracy to kill Rabin. Some testimony is classified, and the filmmaker explicitly shows the interruption and removal of witnesses to imply a sinister cover up that exposes the true culprits. The head of police insists that he did nothing wrong, and the head of security paints Rabin as a man that even after shot, saved his bodyguard though the heroic, tough guy image is not reflected in his earlier testimony or scientific evidence. In times of crisis, without practice, protocol collapses, and people respond in ways that they could not imagine. Is it the frailty of human nature in the face of death, the default to incompetence, or something more sinister? I’m inclined to lean towards incompetence, but I’m not sure if the movie agrees with me.
I think that if I watched Rabin: The Last Day again when I was less tired and more familiar with the material, I could get more out of it, but I will never watch it again. Two hours and thirty-three minutes is too damn long, and the movie needed a ruthless editor. I watched Shoah and various Ken Burns’ documentary mini-series in one sitting with fewer breaks than this movie. It was too tonally flat and insistent, i.e. repetitive, with its point about how systematic oppression eventually will strike the very person that the system is supposed to protect. I suspect that this movie is a preach to the choir movie, and if you are not already inclined to agree with its conclusion, it won’t win any converts with its dry, deliberate pacing or running time.
I watch Israeli movies, and despite my appreciation for Rabin: The Last Day, I found it a difficult movie to watch. If you are interested in the religious, socioeconomic environment of Israel, then you should definitely check out this movie, but even if you are somewhat familiar with this story, you still may find it difficult to follow. If I could turn back time, I would have skipped this movie and tried to find a documentary or book about the subject. I have no idea how this movie ended up in my queue.