Review: Israeli thriller 'Incitement,' which follows a student's radicalization into an assassin, feels all-too current

I can only imagine the experience of watching “Incitement” in an Israeli theater, where Yigal Amir’s name likely is as familiar as Lee Harvey Oswald’s name is in America.

Israeli audiences would know well ahead of American viewers how this movie tragically ends — with the 1995 assassination of Israel’s prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. They wouldn’t be looking, as I did for awhile, for some indication that Amir might step away from the brink. But director Yaron Zilberman’s relentless ratcheting of the grim tension tells even a naive viewer that no such relief is coming.

The story begins in 1994 in Israel, and the TV and radio are filled with the reports of Rabin meeting with Yassir Arafat, head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, at Bill Clinton’s White House. They are there to sign the first of the Oslo accords, the tenuous first steps toward a Middle East peace solution.

Back home, the Oslo agreements are quite divisive, and several conservative politicians — Ariel Sharon and the current PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, are seen here in well-purposed news footage — and religious leaders are speaking out. Some reactionary rabbis go so far as calling Rabin a traitor to the Jewish people.

Such arguments find a receptive audience with Yigal Amir (Yehuda Nahari), a young law student with a lot of unresolved anger. He takes in the rhetoric he hears from some extremist rabbis — that Rabin is betraying the Jewish people, so a Jew would be justified in killing him — and starts plotting. First he wants to organize a militia to replace the Israeli Defense Forces units standing down in Gaza and the West Bank. Then, goaded on by his brother Hagai (Yoav Levi) and others, he considers how one could assassinate Rabin.

Zilberman and his co-writer, Ron Leshem, don’t glorify or justify Amir’s actions, but they do detail the escalation of his radicalization. Some are rooted in psychology — like how his mother (Anat Ravnitski) regularly assures Amir that he is “destined for greatness,” or when his girlfriend, Nava (Daniella Kertesz), becomes uncomfortable with his extremist views. Others come from soaking in the media, like the talk radio hosts who predict violence or the utterances of Rabin’s rivals (Netanyahu’s rhetoric is particularly bellicose),

The inevitable ending is handled brilliantly, as Zilberman films Nahari in crowd scenes and edits them deftly with real footage of the rally where Rabin was speaking before Amir killed him. The attention to detail, and the intensity of Nahari’s performance, make for a devastating ending.

What’s most disturbing about “Incitement” is that it doesn’t feel like a period piece. The cumulative effect of the demonization of Rabin and Amir’s descent into being radicalized feels frighteningly of the moment, something we see on our news feeds every day. “Incitement” feels like a foreign-language film for which we’re seeing the American remake in real time. 

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‘Incitement’

★★★1/2

Opened January 31 in select cities; opens Friday, February 14, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably R for violence and some language. Running time: 123 minutes; in Hebrew, with subtitles.