Review: Want to be Angry-Meet L’ichos (2006)

Director: Haim Tal | 18 minutes | documentary, short film

“Want to be Angry” tells the very sad but sadly realistic story of a young Israeli boy who lost his father in one of the terrible suicide bombings that have ravaged Israel in the struggle for peace for many years. The documentary is filmed like a diary in which Yam speaks to his father, tells him what is going on inside him and shares his dreams and fears with him. Yam’s story is mostly about everyday things, things most kids can discuss with their fathers, from scoring a great goal at a school football game to the first kiss with that oh-so-cute girl in class. Fortunately, he can discuss his blossoming love life with his older sister.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with everything. Yam especially has a hard time with his father not being able to be with his Bar-Mitzvah. This is one of the most important events in the life of a Jewish boy in which he becomes an official adult, an event involving a reading from the Torah followed by a big celebration. Yam tells his father the plans for the party, plans that he knows his father would disapprove of because of the loud music and the belly dancers.

Yam’s story is full of moving moments where you feel it is unfair that this child has lost his father at such a young age and that he grows up with all kinds of questions he can no longer ask his father. Two weeks after the Bar-Mitzvah party, Yam is on his way to Nahariya, to the station where his father died: “Papi”, he says to his father, “you know, when you died I was nine years old, and I thought that I would get over it. Now I am already thirteen, but to tell you the truth, it still hurts just as much. ”

“Want to be Angry” is a sad documentary that gives a glimpse into the life of a boy who misses his father terribly. It’s nearly impossible to keep it dry during the eighteen minutes of Yam sharing his thoughts with you. At the end of the film, when director Haim Tal asks Yam if he is angry with someone because of what happened, Yam replies, “Who should I be angry with? At him?”