World War II ended 80 years ago, but its legacy casts a considerable shadow over director/writer Asaf Saban’s coming-of-age film Delegation. After graduating from High School, a group of Israeli teens embarks on a tour of Poland. At the airport, they joke and playfully shove each other while retrieving their luggage. Most movies of this type would quickly follow with a journey through raging hormones, break-ups, and bad decisions, but these kids haven’t been flown to Europe to blow off steam.
This tour has the somber purpose of visiting the darkest sites of the Holocaust. The adults in charge utilize the terrible gravity of these spaces. Before each visit, they hand out Israeli flags. Nearly every night, there’s a group circle where everyone can share their feelings. The teens feed off this mix of grief and patriotism. It bonds them as they walk through Majdanek and Auschwitz. Through these experiences, they develop commitments to each other and to their country. This, in the view of their elders, is a necessary rite of passage, as upon returning home, their charges will be conscripted into the Israeli army.
The stories of three teens ground Delegation. Frisch (Yoav Bavly) is an insightful, reflective boy who questions the flag-waving and externalized grief. Nitz (Neomi Harari, a real standout here) is a free spirit who dances in hotel hallways and drinks too much. This girl is a total flirt. She teases Frisch, joking that she will help him get lucky with Polish girls. However, she physically gravitates towards Ido (Leib Lev Levin). Tall and handsome, Ido is on the outs with another girl on the tour. He’s clearly attracted to Nitz. Complicating things is the fact the pair have been friends for a long time. But could they be more? This relationship will be tested when Nitz makes a fateful decision while visiting the camps. Levin and Harari artfully make this moment a focal point of their characters’ intimate connection.
“… Israeli High School graduates on a tour of Poland’s darkest Holocaust sites…”
Saban doesn’t miss the absurdities of the adults. The security officer is vigilant and on-message. He shows the kids a film warning them about falling in with untrustworthy foreigners, but he says nothing when they parade in hoodies plastered with blue Stars of David. Tour leader Ainat (Alma Dishy) is outwardly nurturing, a mother hen among her brood. In private, however, she aggressively presses Frisch’s Holocaust-survivor grandfather Yosef (Ezra Dagan) to “get to the action” in his war stories. Yosef is in the autumn of his life, and would rather reminisce about girls than talk about running from German soldiers, but he’s been put in the role of a living witness. This grave responsibility doesn’t suit him. Dishy shines as Ainat.
Bavly delivers Delegation’s most powerful moment when Frisch goes off on his own. He winds up in a small town with a group of Poles that fetishize him for his Jewish identity. His response is painful to watch, but the scene speaks to an ugly truth running through this film. It’s far too easy for humans to miss each other’s humanity.
Delegation stands as a poignant document which treats the tough subject matter with humanity and restraint. Saban is too smart to leave the audience with a parade of stereotypes. These are kids about to enter adulthood, but their circumstances are complicated by ancient history. Will they buy into the narrative they’ve been given? We are given no easy answers. That bravery is the mark of good filmmaking.
"…treats the tough subject matter with humanity and restraint."
