Berlinale winner Nadav Lapid: "I had to leave to save my soul"

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Lapid, you have so far mainly realized Israeli productions. Why a French movie?

Lapid: It's still a very Israeli movie, even though he plays in France. It's about an Israeli who emigrates to Paris. Sometimes you have to fly to the moon to get a closer look at the earth. Israel, too, can be better looked at from a distance, as in this case from Paris.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The goal of your protagonist Yoav is to give up his Israeli identity after military service and to build a completely new life in Paris. He wants to become a Frenchman, never speak Hebrew or return. You also process your own experience. They left Israel after military service and emigrated to France.

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Lapid: "Synonymes" is very autobiographical, even if many moments are fictional. I did not want to bring my life to the screen one-to-one, but use it as inspiration. As usual in Israel, I started my military training at 18, which lasted three and a half years. I was sent to a small military base on the border with Syria and Lebanon. This fate, of course, was no surprise, as Israelis have known since childhood, it is part of growing up in our country. Consciously or unconsciously we learn that soldiers are better than poets. We learn very early what is important in life. And that is: running fast, shooting safely and being brave. Then you prepare yourself as a child and I too was a good soldier, a very good one.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What do you mean, to have been a very good soldier?

Lapid: I got awards, and even though it was a hard time, I did not suffer. But I was ignorant, too. When I was bored, and there were often times when we had nothing to do, I imagined my own military funeral. But I did not think about it. Then the service suddenly stops and you return home as if it had not happened. You go out with friends again, I started working as a journalist at a newspaper, I studied and wrote a novel. But it felt normal because the whole country is ticking. But at some point I realized that the moment you accept the extraordinary as the norm, the monster begins to grow.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What does that mean in concrete terms?

Lapid: After about a year and a half, I had almost a kind of enlightenment. I realized that I must leave Israel to save my soul. As fast as possible, maybe it was already too late. I am not a believer, but it was almost like a voice that spoke to me. Ten days later I landed at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. My only plan was to stop being an Israeli and become a Frenchman. I wanted to live and die in Paris and never return. I stopped speaking Hebrew and when I talked to my parents once a month, I answered them in English.

Many of my experiences in Paris are also in the film, at that time I did not know anything about cinema, but I wrote down what happened to me and to me because I could not talk to anyone about it. I use my personal experience, but I believe that everyone can contribute to what it means to exist in this world. But I know my own life better than any other, that's why I used that.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is your own experience nevertheless transferable in a way to the young men and women of your generation in Israel?

Lapid: In the film, Yoav is in a very specific situation, but I hope he speaks to everyone. The majority in Israel believe in the good guys and differentiate themselves from the "others". It's a black and white society.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is the film also a reaction to the fact that many young Israelis move to Berlin in search of freedom and in France Jews leave the country because of anti-Semitic attacks?

Lapid: My film is not a political film in the classical sense, it's not about the current situation, it's about the situation itself. And then I wondered why that touches me that way, even if I do not live there anymore. I understand that Israel's collective consciousness has a lot to do with masculinity. What does it mean to be a man today? I am not a sociologist, I take certain poetic liberties to speak about Israel, as I see it. But I can argue with anyone who has a different opinion. That's the beauty of Israel.