Imagine - Family

After creating a group portrait of her dead relatives in her parental home, photographer Lily calls in on her psychiatrist. She is not there, but her daughter is willing to listen to Lily”s story. The history of a dysfunctional family - to put it mildly - heading for destruction unfolds in flashbacks. This family drama skims the boundaries of the absurd, but has no qualms about uncovering stinking wounds either.

That family doesn”t have to be synonymous with love and loyalty, is made terrifyingly clear in this Israeli psychological drama. Perhaps not surprising with a tyrant for a father, an alcoholic for a mother, an insane sister and a largely absent brother. But no matter how grotesquely the drama unfolds at times, the underlying emotions – despair and rage – are made intensely palpable. Surely it”s no coincidence that most of the female parts have depth, while the men are granted less complexity. This is also a film from a country where (political) fault lines run straight through families. No matter how beautiful it looks, Family is above all a painful film.