Alma Har'el

Alma Har'el
Born Tel Aviv, Israel
Occupation Film and music video director
Notable work Bombay Beach, Fjögur píanó

Alma Har'el is a music video and film director, best known for her documentary Bombay Beach, which took the top prize at Tribeca Film Festival in 2011,[1] received a nomination for a 2011 Independent Spirit "Truer than Fiction" award,[2] and has been taught in several universities, including Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab and Film Center, as a genre redefining work.

Har’el is famous for her ability to artistically blur the lines between documentary and fiction, effectively utilizing choreographed dance sequences and inspired musical choices in a surreal, dream-like poetic meditation on life. Stephan Holden of The New York Times wrote about Har'el's film Bombay Beach: “[it] looks and feels like a fever dream about an alternate universe. Suffused with a sense of wonder, it hovers, dancing inside its own ethereal bubble”.[3]

Alma is married to writer director Boaz Yakin.

Early life

Born and raised in Israel, Alma Har’el began her work as a photographer and a performer of live video mixing in music concerts.

One of Har’el’s most prominent projects as a VJ was a collaboration with the Balkan Beat Box, “a performance-meets-dance party that blends electronic music with hard-edged folk music from North Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and Eastern Europe.”[4]

Their first album included an 11-minute video titled: The Balkan Beat Box 1st show ever - Digital Diary of Alma Har’el. The video was edited by Har’el and features Har’el performing on stage and mixing live video art alongside the band. In an interview for Oyster Magazine she recalls: “I never studied film, so that (VJing) was my film school” [...] I wanted to feel as though I was playing videos like a musical instrument — editing them live, with people reacting. That still has a big impact on me to this day.”[5]

Career

Working on live video-art performances with different musicians led Har’el to directing music videos, and her frequent collaborations with singer Zach Condon of the band Beirut brought her numerous awards and nominations in film and music video festivals around the world.

Har’el’s work on the acclaimed Beirut music video Elephant Gun, an eclectic marriage of whimsical, drunk modern dance and youthful celebration, earned her a VMA nomination for Best Directorial Debut, Best Directorial Debut at the MVPA awards and a mention on Paste Magazine's Top 50 Videos of the Decade.[6]

Steve Labate of Paste Magazine wrote, “Martin Scorsese has spoken of his affection for the ballet of the camera, and director Alma Har’el seems to get this concept intuitively.”[6]

On working with Zach Condon of Beirut, Har’el writes: “That sound is how I feel when I’m honest about my life, that juxtaposition of melancholy and loneliness with the absolute enjoyment and happiness of being alive." [7]

In her most recent music video for Sigur Rós'Fjögur píanó in 2012, Har’el directed Shia Labeouf along with dancer Denna Thomsen. The video was part of the Valtari Mystery Film Experiment, in which the acclaimed Icelandic band Sigur Rós asked a dozen filmmakers to each select a song from their new album and shoot a video inspired by the music. The Wall Street Journal writes: “All the directors received the same $10,000 budget and zero instructions from the band. With that creative freedom, filmmaker Alma Har’el delivered dead butterflies, light-up lollipops and a naked (in every sense) performance from a star of megabudget Hollywood movies.”[8]

Har’el’s video for Fjögur píanó was an overnight sensation, gaining millions of views on YouTube and applauded as a unique artistic achievement in the media around the world. Filmmaker Magazine called it “provocative and dramatically compelling."[9] In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Har’el said, “For me, it’s about not knowing how to get out of something without causing pain to somebody else, for other people it might be about candy and fish. I’m down with that.”[8]

In an interview for Vulture Magazine, Shia LaBeouf explained his involvement in the project and how he met Har’el: "I wrote a fan letter, I saw Bombay Beach, the movie that Alma Har'el made. It touched me. I told her so. She told me she’d like to work with me. I said, 'What are you doing?' She said, 'I got this Sigur Rós thing.' I said, 'Cool. Can I get involved?' And at the time, it was a different idea. So we worked on the idea for a week."[10]

Har’el said in an interview about the video with Filmmaker Magazine: “I suffer a lot when I have no freedom to do what I want because it always turns less than what it can be. But making films is expansive and you have to choose your battles. In this one, we were all on the same side.”[9]

In 2011, Har’el was chosen as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Cinema.[11] Filmmaker Magazine writes: “Stunningly shot and formally audacious, Bombay Beach, the first feature of director and cinematographer Alma Har’el is a rare bird, the type of film that seems to be building its own cinematic language from the ground up. While it wears the influence of Harmony Korine, Larry Clark, Lynne Ramsay, David Gordon Green, Charles Burnett and Gus Van Sant (just to name a few), it announces a major new directorial talent in Har’el who is working in a key all her own.”[12]

In 2014, Har'el also joined the team at RYOT.org as the company's Global Creative Director.

Feature

Bombay Beach is a 2011 feature film about the rusting relic of a failed 1950s development boom. The Salton Sea, a prominent character in the film, is a barren Californian landscape often seen as a symbol of the failure of the American Dream.

The film uses an adamantly atypical and artistically innovative filmmaking to tell the story of three protagonists: Benny Parrish, a young boy diagnosed with bipolar disorder whose troubled soul and vivid imagination create both suffering and joy for him and his complex and loving family. CeeJay Thompson, a black teenager and aspiring football player who has taken refuge in Bombay Beach hoping to avoid the same fate of his cousin who was murdered by a gang of youths in Los Angeles. And that of Red, an ancient survivor, once an oil field worker, living on the fumes of whiskey, cigarettes and an irrepressible love of life. Together they make up a triptych of American manhood in its decisive moments, populating the Salton Sea's land of thwarted opportunity.

Bombay Beach is a dreamlike poem that sets these personal stories to a stylized melding of observational documentary and choreographed dance, to music specially composed for the film by Zach Condon of the band Beirut, and songs by Bob Dylan. “The result is a moving and madly inventive documentary experience—an evocative, symbolic portrait of rural America and its inhabitants.”[13]

In an interview for The Wall Street Journal, Zach Condon spoke about the process of composing music for the film: “Mr. Condon, whose songs conjure echoes of Jacques Brel and Balkan wedding orchestras, had begun to avoid requests for film music. "I gave up", he said. "I'd send an MP3 of something, and they'd send it back with someone else's song, saying, 'Make it sound like this'. Over and over." Ms. Har'el only asked for whatever music he had handy, often stripped of vocal tracks. But as she began assembling scenes, Mr. Condon started to compose, watching the footage on Ms. Har'el's laptop in his family's house in Santa Fe. "I loved the day-dreamy quality," he said of the film. "The wandering eye through that landscape".”[14]

Terry Gilliam described the film as “a beautiful, quirky, and ultimately very moving film about the American Dream as it teeters on the edge of a desert sea.”

Music Videos

  • Sigur Rós- "Fjögur píanó" (2012)
  • Shearwater- "Hidden Lakes" (2010)
  • We Are The World- "Clay Stones" (2009)
  • Fanfarlo- "Harold T. Wilkins" (2009)
  • Beirut- "Concubine" (2009)
  • Jack Penate- "Tonight's Today" (2009)
  • The Rolling Stones- "You Can't Always Get What You Want ( Soul Wax remix)" (2009)
  • Nikka Costa- "Stuck to You" (2008)
  • Bajofondo- "Pa' Bailar" (2008)
  • Beirut- "Postcards from Italy" (2008)
  • Beirut- "Elephant Gun" (2007)
  • Taylor Hawkins and The Cocktail Riders- "Louise" (2007)
  • Mooky- "Won't Stop Dreaming" (2006)

Awards & Accolades

References

  1. ↑ http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival/features/Awards_Announced_2011_Tribeca_Film_Festival.html
  2. ↑ http://www.ifc.com/spirit-awards/nokia-truer-than-fiction-award
  3. ↑ http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/movies/bombay-beach-documenting-faded-glory-review.html
  4. ↑ essayrecordings
  5. ↑ Oyster #99: Film Director Alma Har'el | Fashion Magazine | News. Fashion. Beauty. Music. | oystermag.com
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 The 50 Best Music Videos of the Decade (2000-2009) :: Music :: Lists :: Paste
  7. ↑ A Conversation With Alma Har’el (BOMBAY BEACH) – Hammer to Nail
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Exclusive: Sigur Ros Video ‘Fjogur Piano’ Featuring Shia LaBeouf - Speakeasy - WSJ
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 http://filmmakermagazine.com/47664-alma-harel-on-her-shia-labeouf-starring-sigur-ros-film/
  10. ↑ Shia LaBeouf Explains That Nude Sigur Rós Video - Vulture
  11. ↑ http://filmmakermagazine.com/26368-25-new-faces-of-independent-film-2011/
  12. ↑ http://filmmakermagazine.com/32326-alma-harel-bombay-beach/
  13. ↑ New release - Bombay Beach | Dogwoof Shop Documentary DVD
  14. ↑ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703956904576287444213066406.html
  15. ↑ The 20 Best Uses of Bob Dylan Songs In Film :: Movies :: Lists :: Paste

External links