THE STORY – A former Israeli politician and Soviet dissident finds his betrayer at a Crimean resort, sparking a confrontation with past wounds and questions of justice and forgiveness.
THE CAST – Michael Aronov, Kaelen Ohm, Simon McBurney, Tina Benko & Roxanna Hope Radja
THE TEAM – David Bezmozgis (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 90 Minutes
The ancient philosophical notion of Theseus’ ship – collected by Plutarch among others – tells the story of a vessel having each board, rope, nail, and sail replaced over time. Bit by bit, every part is eventually replaced, so that no original element remains. The question is, if nothing from where it began remains, is it still the same ship? “The Betrayers” is the story of human ships of Theseus, their moral center replaced bit by bit until their very nature is almost completely supplanted, even if they are ostensibly the same person. It’s a harrowing prospect to be so far removed from the center from which you began, but indicative that as the scars of previous actions and behaviors replace original tissue, we’re easily made into people that our earlier selves would hardly recognize.
Based on David Bezmozgis’ 2014 novel, “The Betrayers” is a powerful story following refugees fleeing their own past. Baruch (Michael Aronov) is a former Soviet prisoner who emigrated to Israel and became a powerful and charismatic politician. When a sexual scandal is used as a form of blackmail, using his affar with his staffer Leora (Kaelen Ohm) to pressure his party to support the fragile coalition ruling the country, he chooses one betrayal over all others. Departing his country, his party, his wife, and his son, he leaves for Yalta in Crimea, a place from his past that he spent years trying to leave, only to find himself back there at this most tumultuous of times. There, he has a chance encounter with a former friend and colleague (played ably by Simon McBurney), himself trapped in a past shaped by his own betrayal where he acquiesced to police pressure and sold Baruch out to the authorities. This sets in motion a complex web of moral quandaries, where the interwoven history of these individuals exudes a toxicity long buried but soon causing havoc for all involved.
Set prior to the latest escalation between Ukraine and Israel, and years before the current escalation of violence in the Middle East, Bezmozgis’ film is paradoxically timeless in its notions of human frailty while equally a fascinating time capsule that almost prophetically speaks to a moral and political rot that shapes the many areas that Baruch has called home. The film is intrinsically political given its subject matter but it’s never polemical, and if anything it’s at its best when it avoids knee-jerk reactive elements that would have befouled a lesser film.
Aronov, known to general audiences from his work on “The Americans,” is a perfect match to the supremely charming political figure and the rage-filled individual shaped overtly by the traumas of his past. The rest of the ensemble does a wonderful job of inhabiting the various locations, be they an innocuous luxury hotel room right down to a more squalid residence occupied by those not lucky enough to leave the place they called home.
Despite is claustrophobic setting and dramatic outbursts bordering on the melodramatic, there’s a keen precision to Bezmozgis’ telling that keeps things from going off the rails. These are broken people reopening the wounds of the past by their very encounter, and as the film culminates we see that the more one digs into the pain and deceit that each has experienced, there’s a sense of deep recognition in the shared flaws between both men conjoined by these tragedies. And thus, the idea that people of radical difference are inextricably linked through the trauma of their past becomes an even greater metaphor for the larger political conflicts, showing that there’s far more in common than in contrast, much to the detriment of easy answers to moving forward in tranquility. These are people and countries ripped apart and reassembled so many times that their Theseusian natures have been stretched to the limit such that they can no longer convincingly consider themselves the same moral figure they were when they set out on their journeys.
It’s in this context that “The Betrayers” takes on both the cloistered scope of individual altercations right through to the scope of geopolitical conflict. It’s a challenging trick to pull off, but thanks to some powerful performances, a clever and articulate script, and a keen eye to keep audiences from settling in to the easiest of responses, one is treated to a film of rare sophistication and impact, one that’s of a very narrow and specific time, yet one that speaks to deeply human flaws that are, tragically, timeless.
