Broken Wings movie storyline. The unexpected death of the family patriarch throws every member of the Ulman clan off course. Widow Dafna takes to bed for three months and when she finally returns to her job at the maternity hospital, she has little time for her children. Eldest son, Yair drops out of school and adopts a fatalist attitude, shutting out his siblings and girlfriend.
His twin sister Maya, a talented musician, feels the most guilt and is forced to act as a family caregiver at the expense of career opportunities. Bullied at school, younger son Ido responds by obsessively filming himself with a video camera and attempting dangerous feats. The baby sister, Bar, is woefully neglected. Preoccupied with their own misery, the family is barely a family anymore. When another tragedy strikes, will they be able to support one another?
Broken Wings (Hebrew: Knafayim Shvurot) is a 2002 Israeli film directed by Nir Bergman and starring Orly Silbersatz Banai, Maya Maron, Nitai Gvirtz, Daniel Magon, Eliana Magon, Dana Ivgy, Yarden Bar-Kochba, Vladimir Friedman and Shira Vilensky.
Film Review for Broken Wings
There’s no room in Nir Bergman’s Israeli family drama for the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Wrapped up in their fraught emotions, petty arguments, and family feuds, the characters of “Broken Wings” have enough troubles without brooding over the ups and downs of Middle Eastern politics.
Left without a husband or father following a family bereavement, the Ulmans are struggling to stay together in the northern Israeli city of Haifi. Mother Dafna (Orly Zilberschatz-Banai) is working double shifts, leaving eldest daughter Maya (Maya Maron) torn between following her musical dreams and looking after the rest of the family. It’s an impossible combination to juggle, and sooner or later something’s got to give…
As its title suggests, this intimate film is a story of frustrated dreams. Approaching the family’s unremarkable life with careful delicacy, Bergman extracts marvellous performances from his cast, not least of all Maya Maron as the slacker teenager who’s forced to skip her adolescence for the sake of her younger siblings.
Teasing out the gender issues behind the drama – Maya’s not the oldest child, but as a girl she’s made to shoulder the responsibilities – Bergman gives his characters an impressive fragility. He also finds unexpected potential in the slightest of sequences, from Dafna’s half-hearted trip to a video dating agency to the youngest boy’s disastrous obsession with jumping into empty swimming pools.
Setting its sights low, “Broken Wings” never reaches beyond the confines of this troubled family and their everyday woes. Yet as the mournful strains of Maya’s song for her dead father flood the soundtrack, it’s apparent that this is the film’s greatest strength. Focusing on the interrelationships between the bickering children and their exhausted mother, Bergman’s film possesses a vibrant dramatic confidence that many, more ambitious, first features often fail to deliver.
Broken Wings (2002)
Knafayim Shvurot
Directed by: Nir Bergman
Starring: Orly Silbersatz Banai, Maya Maron, Nitai Gvirtz, Daniel Magon, Eliana Magon, Dana Ivgy, Yarden Bar-Kochba, Vladimir Friedman, Shira Vilensky
Screenplay by: Nir Bergman
Cinematography by: Valentin Belonogov
Film Editing by: Einat Glaser-Zarhin
Costume Design by: Ada Levin
Art Direction by: Ido Dolev
Music by: Avi Belleli
MPAA Rating: R for some language, brief nudity and drug use.
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: October 24, 2002
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