Director: Guy Nattiv
Writer: Nicholas Martin
Stars: Helen Mirren, Zed Josef, Claudette Williams
Synopsis: Focuses on the intensely dramatic and high-stakes responsibilities and decisions that Golda Meir, also known as the ‘Iron Lady of Israel’ faced during the Yom Kippur War..
Golda is an exceptional historical drama that unfolds like a tightly wound political thriller and showcases a virtuoso performance by Helen Mirren in the titular role. Of course, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. However, the film leads to a stunning scene between Golda Meir and Henry Kissinger (the outstanding Liev Schreiber), which might be one of the year’s best.
Around the 72-minute mark, after ignoring the mighty United States’ pleas for a cease-fire, primarily related to oil price increases, Mirren unloads a demand on Schreiber’s Kissinger that sends shivers down the spine and raises the hairs on your arms. “You must decide, Henry, side with me, or I will create an army of orphans and widows, and I will slaughter them all. Whose side are you on? You must choose.”
For a fan of the genre or a historical junkie, it’s as riveting a scene as you may see all year. Never before has the red handset being slammed back into its base reverberated more with anticipation of dire consequences. Even for the Soviet Union and the United States, who were squeezing the first and only female Prime Minister of Israel into a ceasefire, these two superpowers were no match for a weathered and chain-smoking old Jewish bitty in sturdy orthopedic shoes.
Directed by Academy Award winner Guy Nattiv, Golda follows the controversial political figure over a 21-day period in 1973, which involved Meir’s Israel and the Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. (Yes, the war lasted 19 days, but the film covers a few days after the conflict “officially” ended.) Meir had the impossible task of preventing her country’s all but certain annihilation.
That’s because she and her citizens were stuck between several rocks and hard places from different angles. For one, Israel and Meir were just not fighting the war with the heavily armed Arab nations. For one, the threat of Soviet involvement was always lingering. In a political chess match, Meir continually attempts to involve the United States, despite Kissinger’s objections because the United States must remain neutral because of its dependence on foreign oil.
Golda was written by Florence Foster Jenkins’ scribe Nicholas Martin, and his script is brilliantly paced while juggling multiple storylines about how the war affects people abroad and at home. Most of the film is told on numerous fronts. For instance, when in Meir’s house, she shows a vulnerable side with her assistant as she suffers from chronic and debilitating physical ailments. Another, which is the film’s central narrative, goes back and forth to her tribunal, deciding if her decisions were indeed lawful.
Another from the political offices and makeshift war room went over political strategies, displaying the strength and creativity most political figures could only dream of possessing. Finally, involving what is possibly the film’s most visually stunning scene, a military operation bunker, where Meir has to make choices that even Sophie would find herself running away from.
And this is where the marriage of page to screen between Nattiv, Martin, Mirren, and the director of photography Jasper Wolf’s gorgeously claustrophobic and intimate cinematography becomes harmonious cinema. You can practically feel the cloud of smoke Meir blows in the camera’s face as she listens in real-time to the demise of the Israeli soldiers she deploys into all but certain ominous outcomes.
The way Martin’s script layers themes of anxiety at home, where Meir is constantly aware from the stenographer’s mood as she has a loved one involved in the fight, circles back to a devastatingly effective scene—Mirren’s delivery of astute and enlightening political observations like “Knowing when you lost is easy; knowing when you won is hard,” and “Just remember all political careers end in failure.”
Many claim that Golda can be putting it politely, dry, or even dull. While that’s understandable, this is a film with a limited budget. The team here squeezes every ounce they can with the funding and story available to them. And while the criticisms of casting Mirren as a Jewish hero and icon are legitimate, it’s hard to argue how Mirren inhabits the real-life figure’s weathered mind, body, and soul.
