‘Shikun’ Review: Amos Gitai Channels Ionesco’s ‘Rhinoceros’ in His Scattered Critique of Israel
variety.comSiddhant Adlakha A loose adaptation of absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” director Amos Gitai’s “Shikun” unfolds in a multi-use housing project, where it follows the stream-of-consciousness travails of a diverse cross-section of characters in Be’er-Sheva, Israel.
Bound by the French-language narration of Irène Jacob — a one-woman Greek chorus and de-facto liaison between sides of the fourth wall — the film embodies the struggle to reconcile learned anger with calls for peace, and it takes several steps to the left of the distant, “kumbaya” observationalism of some of Gitai’s previous work (like “Tramway in Jerusalem”).
However, despite its refreshing political outlook, “Shikun” is anything but radical in execution, and it’s rarely interesting to watch.
Echoes of “Rhinoceros” remain in Gitai’s transposition from a small French town to an Israeli building and bus station. The play saw numerous characters transform into rhinoceroses while others around them remained indifferent, a mass metamorphosis that mirrored the rise of Nazi fascism before World War II.
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