Atalia is an
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i film of 1984, adapted from a story by
Yitzhak Ben NerYitzhak Ben Ner is an influential Israeli writer, screenwriter, journalist, and film critic. He has also hosted and edited radio and TV programs.-Biography:Ben Ner was born in 1937 in Kfar Yehoshua, Israel...
.
Crew
The film was mostly shot on location at Kibbutz Yakum.
Plot summary
Atalia, a 40-year old war widow, who lost her husband in the
Six-Day WarThe Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
, lives in a
kibbutzA kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
with her adolescent daughter. She is lonely and feels outcast, and eventually enters into a liaison with her daughter's classmate - Matti, an idealistic 19-year old boy who had been rejected by the army. The two find some happiness in each other's arms, but their love in foredoomed in the
puritanThe Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
ical
KibbutzA kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
society.
Significance of the name
The original
AthaliahAthaliah was the queen of Judah during the reign of King Jehoram, and later became sole ruler of Judah for six years. William F. Albright has dated her reign to 842–837 BC, while Edwin R. Thiele's dates, as taken from the third edition of his magnum opus, were 842/841 to 836/835 BC...
had been a Biblical queen of
JudeaJudea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
, whom the
BibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
presents as a tyrannical usurper and idolater. Used, though not commonly, as a female first name in Israel, Athalia is a secularist name associated with the sector of Israeli society which tends to rebel against old traditions and conventions and seek new ways. This meaning is obvious to Israeli audiences, and clearly has some relevance to the film's themes.
External links